Latest Articles

Jan 14, 2021

Tidbits of the Digital Chicago Method Part 7 – Introducing the Survey's New Sun-Shadow Brushes

In this new tutorial of the Survey's "Tidbits…" series, digitalEPIGRAPHY would like to focus on one of the focal points in rendering raised and sunken relief, namely sun-shadow transitions.

Dec 15, 2020

digitalEPIGRAPHY's New Databases for Painted Hieroglyphs and Visual Documentation Are Here!

With our brand-new collections, digitalEPIGRAPHY would like to test the water to find out how we can support your research. What we've been working on for some time now is two visual databases, directly accessible and searchable through the website,...

Dec 4, 2020

Rishi Coffin fragments from the Western Cemetery at Giza

The Harvard University – Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Expedition at the Old Kingdom site of Giza has uncovered significant material from later periods of Ancient Egyptian history, including fragments of a “rishi” type coffin now preserved in...

Dec 1, 2020

Photoshop one-on-one – How to remove the background of scanned artworks in preparation for a digital takeover

In the following tutorial, we'd like to show you the main differences between several options to disintegrate certain types of pixels, while explaining how to "detach" a scanned line drawing from its background.

Nov 9, 2020

Star Gazing: Digitally Drawing the Bark Shrine Ceiling of the Small Amun Temple

Epigraphic drawing to document the ceiling of the bark shrine on behalf of the Epigraphic Survey were begun in the Spring of 2019. The ceiling would be documented using the Chicago House method and all digital technology, including the photography...

Oct 26, 2020

A Photogrammetric Triple Constraint: Time, Distance, Camera Cost

With the rise of photogrammetry in digital epigraphy, so has the ability to produce quality, to-scale photographs without expensive field equipment. Although lighting is, has been, and always will be, a major factor in the quality of said...

Oct 8, 2020

Adonit’s Note-M iPad stylus arrives with built in mouse functions, teaching you a trick or two about multitasking

Until a couple of days ago I had rather conflicting feelings about Adonit’s latest iPad stylus, the appropriately named Note-M. The “M” moniker is supposed to stand for mouse, and indeed, the novelty here is the combining of a computer mouse...

Sep 30, 2020

XP-PEN matures its artist pro line with usability upgrades, radical design changes and renewed focus on quality (Part 2) – Artist Pro 24

Recently, XP-PEN released its largest tablet to date, the brand-new Artist Pro 24, which tackles many of the issues large screens propose. It does so in such a convincing manner that it makes me wonder...

Sep 22, 2020

Illustrator for iPad is available for preorder - A retrospective on Adobe's recent Photoshop and Fresco updates

It’s been a while since we last gave you a status report on Adobe’s creative suit adapted to mobile devices. So, before we turn towards Illustrator for iPad...

Aug 28, 2020

XP-PEN matures its Artist Pro line with usability upgrades, radical design changes and a renewed focus on quality (Part 1) – Innovator 16

We at digitalEPIGRAPHY are in a fortunate situation. Since the Epigraphic Survey started experimenting with utilizing digital tools in their documentation process...

Jul 28, 2020

On Developing a Digital Collation Process for the Epigraphic Survey’s Current Digital Documentation Projects

Last year digitalEPIGRAPHY presented our first digital collation project. Since that time, we have continued to develop and refine our system so that it is more functional for the artists and epigraphers and takes full advantage...

Jul 6, 2020

The updated digitalEPIGRAPHY website – An Epigraphic Survey, Harvard University, and KU Leuven Collaboration

In the past two years, we've been expanding our scope, tirelessly adding new content upon what was available in the original Manual, opening new frontiers of interest, and taking the art of digital documentation in unexpected and exciting new...

Jul 3, 2020

Beginner's Guide to Digital Painting in Procreate - How to Create Art on an iPad

Followers of digitalEPIGRAPHY know by now that Procreate is our official app of choice when it comes to working on the iPad. It is a multi-award-winning painting app that allows artists to paint in high resolution using customized brushes in a...

Jun 29, 2020

Workshop at The American University in Cairo, 22-24 March 2019

The two-day workshop, held at The American University in Cairo between 22-24 March 2019, was organized by Salima Ikram, Distinguished University Professor of Egyptology at the AUC. Our goal with this short course was to introduce AUC students to the...

Jun 24, 2020

Aesthetics and Objectivity in the Visual Representation of Artifacts (Part 1) – Traditional Object Documentation

Any kind of visual interpretation, either being a color rendering of a wall painting or a modeled three-dimensional view of an object, must be tailored to the audience and to the purpose of the actual drawing, whatever the range of technological...

Jun 19, 2020

Photoshop One-on-one – General functions and a specific use-case of the updated Warp Tool

The Warp Transform Tool has been part of Photoshop for a long time, and it had remained mostly unchanged since its introduction until last year, when Adobe updated its Creative Cloud software suite for 2020.

Jun 11, 2020

Move over PaperLike, the new Moshi iVisor provides a matte drawing surface for the iPad with the promise of reusability and easy application

One of the cornerstones of tablet usability in epigraphic work (or in any drawing-related activity, for that matter ) is how well we get accustomed to using a stylus on glass surfaces. If you’ve ever traced a pattern on a light table or by holding...

Jun 8, 2020

Deir el-Medina Stelae and Other Inscribed Objects in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo

Beginning in 2001, the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) in Madrid carried out a study of the stelae from Deir el-Medina collected at the Egyptian Museum of Cairo. The project was directed by Dr. José M. Galán in collaboration with the late...

May 4, 2020

The most useful new features of Photoshop CC Part 3 - Saving brushes with their attributes

The Epigraphic Survey’s digital inking method involves a set of ink brushes, attributed with certain pixel brush widths. With many recent changes and additions altering brush behavior in Photoshop CC, digitalEPIGRAPHY takes a look at the prospect...

May 1, 2020

Physically based rendering (PBR) of Egyptian collection at Brooklyn Museum

The article surveys a number of new methodologies and applications of photogrammetry in Egyptology and Virtual Heritage in general. First, it presents methods for photorealistic rendering of virtual objects...