[Dixielandjazz] Sibelius 4 - Photoscore 4

[Craig I. Johnson]

OK, For those who care about Sibelius4/Photscore 4 I'll try to give some hints.,
All others - the delete key is on the right hand side of the keyboard.

I find Photscore works decently for MY purposes on well printed music like piano sheet
music. At least it gets enough of it right so that it is faster than my trying to input such
a complex sheet. Also well printed lead sheets that look professionally printed.

Frequently I find, if prepared properly I get pretty good recognition on well written
but hand printed lead sheets. 
BUT AGAIN, it is dependent on the individual and what is expected.
But even on sheets that it doesn't do well on, I use it because
1. It shows the original above the one I am preparing on a single computer screen
and
2. It tracks where I am in the original, keeping me from skipping or incorrectly repeating
notes and measures.

I do NOT use it to get the chords and lyrics, tho I show it, later, on the same screen
with Sibelius when I am entering THOSe into Sibelius, I simply select the line in
Photscore that I am working on in Sibelius. Again this is sort of a manual "tracking"
-- not as good, but helpful.

I do NOT use all of Photoscore's features. as indicated above. I turn OFF 
character (as opposed to Note) recognition. I do NOT let it differentiate
between 1st, 2nd and other "voices". I have to correct those. I found those
features if left "on" would increase the number of recognition errors.

My main point here is that:  I am ONLY trying to get it to put the notes etc. in for me.

To translate: -- in the "preferences I only check off:

Scanning preferences:
Automatic scanning,
Scan more quickly (this may actually be bad, but I do it.)
Make greyscale scans level
I also suggest NOT allowing automatic reading after scanning.
I have it turned on, but intend to turn it off so that I can correct
their staff position detection. It keeps detecting non-existent
percussion and other types of staves, so I too frequently, have to go back
and correct it anyway.

Reading Preferences:
TIes, slurs etc.,
Articulation marks
Read One voice ONLY
Advanced tuplet recognition.
All others are unchecked.

I think the other options (editing and general) are not important to this discussion.

I will admit that if you are correcting just about everything, the Sibelius editing
features are far better and have fewer bugs, but I am now very used to the above "tracking feature".
and am quite dependent on it.

-------------------------- To improve recognition:
Also, you need to "prepare" the scanned sheet in many cases. Particularly if you
are doing the relatively impossible task of having it read one of the old fake books or
some of the stuff in the Anderson fake book.
In my case I have the music I have scanned in BOTH pdf and TIF format. (I had a program
that turns pdf into TIF if you want it ( or even BMP).
If Photoscore reads it well in pdf "as is" I use that. If it seems to have trouble, I immediately
sklp the TIF or BMP format -- ONLY because I do NOT have a pdf editor, but I do have
a cheapie graphics editor (paintshop pro) which has all the  (very few) graphic tools I need. 
I take the raw, scanned (at 200 to 400 pixels per inch -- that is important) and read
them into paint shop pro. If they are at another scan density I use paintshop pro (call it PSP)
to change it to 300 or 400. THen I change it to grey scale with 286 colors if it isn't already there.
Then I straighten the music on the page - draw rectangle around and rotate it. If it is too light to
see all the lines well or if the images of notes a ragged, I use the "Blur" tool to make the lines fatter
and cleaner.  Then I file it back again and use that corrected version in Photoscore.
One other thing, if the music sheet is "dirty" or has,as do the old piano sheets, advertising in
the margins, I delete that stuff. I sometimes move rehearsal marks a bit as they can fool
Photscore into thinking that 2 staves are connected if they (rehearsal marks) are too close to the beginning of the staff.

In Photoscore I correct or add the bad or missing notes or accidentals, add crescendos andadd SOME 
of the text but NOT the chords and lyrics - even tho I could.  I find that far easier in Sibelius.

Manually, I add TItle, Subtitle, Composer   using those text types
Using the miscellaneous text type, I add-$- for segno,.
 + DS, to coda, DC  and coda as simple text. I add any expression text using
the 'expression' text in photoscore and add 1st and 2nd endings as '[1' and '[2' respectively. Also
manually add rehearsal marks using THEIR Rehearsal mark feature.. This keeps difficult editing to a minimum, and that I will do that in Sibelius.
About Rehearsal marks. I find that the ones in Photoscore transfer well into Sibelius and are probably note what Sibelius
thinks of as rehearsal marks (but who cares?). They are more flexible and moveable in Sibelius than the ones Sibeius uses
(e.g. I can do "A1" etc. or "TAG"  which Sibelius does not allow and their positioning is not as restricted as are the Sibelius ones.)
-- and I find the things I just mentioned are the things that are very important to position correctly in the first input. I am more flexible
as to the postion of the other texts so I leave them to later in Sibelius.

This may sound a bit arduous, but by this time it goes very fast for me. 
The preparation time is miniscule in the graphic editor I use but is well worth it.
Again, I find that "Tracking"
the song chart above  the version I'm editing is worth all this trouble. YOUR MILEAGE MAY VARY!!!


I hope this is somewhat helpful
Regards,
Craig Johnson
The Maine Street Paraders