Scanning (1 Viewer)

I've noticed in a couple of recent threads that posters have found that they lost detail in their scanned drawings, which is a shame. No claim to expertise from me, but in case of help and perhaps to prompt tips from others, here's a couple of tips-

- tell your scanner to scan the sketch as a coloured picture, even if it is a b/W sketch

- set the scanner to copy the image much darker than normal (to avoid blowing out detail, I usually scan at about at least -25 lightness/darkness and about +8 contrast)

- if you have photoshop or similar, open up the scanned image, and bring the lightness up whilst watching to see when you start to lose the subtle shading- and stop there.

- the end result should be something which is photgraphically poor (its white balance is all wrong) but which shows your shading in all its glory.

There is scope for the scanning to become part of the creative process- on recent efforts I have tended to follow the above, then crank up the saturation and the lightness in selected areas only, to give things a bit more body and form when the drawing is posted, or printed back onto watercolour paper. Disgraceful really...

Hi Ed,
I have only just started using the scanner thats been collecting dust for a couple of years in the corner of the room. I find that any light areas in an otherwise fairly dark picture get really blown out white.I'll give your tips a try next time I scan a picture.
Thanks Steve

Pencil and water colour seem fine when I scan, although Water Colour looses some of the luminosity and some colours scan better than others ie. warm colours always seem to scan stronger than cool colours. My problem is with Charcoal, Chalks etc, the scan just intensifies the white and black, the coloured paper comes out darker - the whole thing looses the subtlety of marks of those small specks of chalk/charcoal dust - if that makes any sense - mind you, most of those have gone up my nose by the time it gets to the scanner!

Oh and I fix them with Hairspray (cheaper than fixative) which the scanner loves to reproduce as a dirty grease-mark smudge round the drawing!

ed keeble said:

There is scope for the scanning to become part of the creative process- on recent efforts I have tended to follow the above, then crank up the saturation and the lightness in selected areas only, to give things a bit more body and form when the drawing is posted, or printed back onto watercolour paper. Disgraceful really...

Click to expand...

Not with my scanning prog unfortunately - it's very basic as it the editing - tried printing out on Water Colour paper once - my little Epson had an apoplectic fit!

deborah4 said:

Not with my scanning prog unfortunately - it's very basic as it the editing - tried printing out on Water Colour paper once - my little Epson had an apoplectic fit!

Click to expand...

absolutely agree on the printing end of things- I tried a so-called printer-friendly textile, bits of which are probably still embedded in the printer here at home. So for any non-routine stuff, I e-mail to a third party printer- not cheap I guess but they get the blots and jams.

I hate my PC scanner - it's horrible!
A tripod mounted digi-camera works better for me - but, as in all things, I'm prepared to be converted.
(My Agfa Snapscan on the Mac, on the other hand, is superb!)
Nice thread Ed

timwootton said:

I hate my PC scanner - it's horrible!
A tripod mounted digi-camera works better for me - but, as in all things, I'm prepared to be converted.
(My Agfa Snapscan on the Mac, on the other hand, is superb!)
Nice thread Ed

Click to expand...

Can't argue with that Tim! My home scanner, on a PC, was bought as a printer/scanner for the kids' school work and it's fine for that, but for anything else, you can forget it!

Despite my hatred of the day job it does allow me access to an excellent scanner - The Epson Expression 10000XL, which, combined with the 'Big Mac' and the enormous screen, makes scanning almost a pleasure. I have a G4 at home too but no scanner for it (yet).

Woody