Some Good! Some Bad! Why???

[Sibelius-Bob]

I've scanned some SATB choir music that has piano accompaniment.
The sheet music itself is good condition.
Why is it then that half the music (pdf files) that I imported into PhotoScore is all screwed up in notation and time signatures, bar lines missings, etc

[bratschenbrenner]

Very good question.
I see that myself.
Maybe after 7 years somebody has acquired knowledge about that!?

I even see, that the auto -rotation completely fails and picks a random line 90 degrees to all the staves and turn it into one "one-line"-stave.
It works perfect sometime. But lately it is really working against me...

[MikeLyons]

Which version of Photoscore are you using? I have great success with both 7 Ultimate and 8, both of which I use a lot. Don't expect lyrics to scan well, but everything else should be OK. Make sure you are scanning good quality prints. Make sure the staff size in PS options is correct and don't let PS read automatically. You need to intervene after scanning to check that all of the staves have been correctly identified. You also need to check clefs and Time/Key Sigs BEFORE you try to send to Sib.

In general, with a good starting point, you should be getting 90% correct reading.

1. The best results usually come from scans of computer generated scores
2. If converting pdfs, they should be the highest quality scans. Those from IMSLP and other places are not always the best quality or the clearest.
3. Make sure you get the staff size correct. Try each of the sizes offered until you get the best results
4. Give up on lyrics before you start - it is much quicker to put these in yourself in Sibelius.
5. You must check and proofread the results BEFORE you try to port into Sibelius. Check for clef changes, key changes, incorrect accidentals and bar lengths/time signatures not matching.
6. Make sure notes in more complex music are in the correct voices.

[bratschenbrenner]

Hi,

thanks for the reply.

I'm using PS Ultimate 7 on Win 10 w Sibelius 8.

[MikeLyons]

I'm on Win 10 Pro with PS 7 and 8 (depending on what mood I'm in, but I think PS7 is marginally better than and Sib 2018.1, 7.5 and 6.2. As I say, my results are probably in the 95% region for scanned and 90% for pdfs. Once you've got the settings that work best, make a note of them so you can go back to them straight away if your machine goes tits up!