Any experienced scanners in the house?
 

Okay... I have been scanning in PC games documentation in preparation for their eventual upload here to Abandonia. The folded and stapled docs are a breeze. The other stuff is not so easy with my Lexmark 9350.

I have photoshopped docs "back to normal" if they are bigger than 8 1/2 inches by 11 inches with pretty good results. However, I have some really, really cool old posters that I'd like to share. I suppose I could peacemeal them back together in Photoshop, but is there an easier way?

Secondly, many old docs are actually bound by glue. If I unfold them to get a good scan, I fear that I might break the spine. I read that it may be easier (and less destructive) if I take photographs using a digital camera (keep in mind that I want to create manuals/docs/literature of the highest quality possible). Any opinions on this?

Thanks,

APf

The poster/map thing can be a real pain in the ---. Once I tried taking a very large map to a local copy shop to have them scan it and that worked but cost me 5 bucks. Since then I have been scanning them in pieces and photo-shopping the pieces together. Getting the edges to match up can be very painstaking work.

I have never had any luck with the digital camera approach except to take box shots of large or irregular shaped boxes.

hmm, i don't know if it will work with scans, but for glueing different photos into a big panorama hugin is doing a great job. i think it would handle non-panoramatic perspectives too

here are some examples of what it created for me

@r.u.s.s.- Interesting! That's some flawless photo stitching. I'm not sure if it'd be superior to a Photochop for my purposes, but I'll definitely play around with it!

@Geezer- No kidding about getting them to match up. The colors are always a little different from scan to scan, so making it appear as a whole unit is maddening. I have this enormous poster / calendar from Interplay that features the Forgotten Realms games Dragon Dice, Descent to Undermountain and Blood and Magic. It's about 3 1/2 feet my 2 1/2 feet, double sided... The odds of making that thing look decent post scan... sigh... A lot of work.

I'll backburner it for a while and come back to it.

APf

Well, I think if you can aquire scanner where upper lid can be removed, it is not a big problem. You simply put poster as you wish it and glue it in Photoshop then. We here, in Russia, had a lot of such scanners several years ago, but now it is MFU rules the stores, and IDK how easy to aquire old good scanner...

APFelon: Try to put a "marker" with pure black and pure white colors somewhere on the edge of the scanner's bed. That should make it easier to balance the colors.

If you have any docs that can be laid flat you can try the older method that we used to use in a photography shop I worked in many years ago, you just lay the doc on a flat surface and place a sheet of glass on top, then light it with just bright natural light to avoid having to use a flash which will obviously cause reflection problems, you can also use a sheet of new clear perspex and weight the edges to hold the doc flat.

You can get very good results this way especially with digital cams with high resolution but you really need to use the cam on a tripod or once the cam is set up use the timer or a remote shutter control to avoid cam shake, it just takes some time in setting things up.

Some professional scanner business's use a scanner that only opens the pages of a book 90 degrees to avoid damaging the spine maybe you could use something similar to scan/photograph any docs that can't be unfolded fully, if you want to get serious about it have a look here for lots of info on making your own book/doc scanners, there called scanners but they actually take photos.

I found this software quite useful in scanning large posters:

http://www.arcsoft.com/estore/softwa...oductCode=SNSD