Scanning for Print

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~KurtisLauwereys Aug 8, 2012 Student Traditional Artist

Hi there!

I'm looking into getting a scanner to scan images that will be offered as prints here on Deviant Art. I was just wondering which ones are the best to use, and why?

I've heard a lot of good things about Epson and their V30, V33, V300 and V 330 models but honestly I don't know what the difference is. All I know is that all of them scan 8.5x11 prints max and I want to be able to print bigger than that. Is that possible without killing the quality?

Any help you can offer is greatly appreciated.

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=nelchee Aug 9, 2012 Professional General Artist

I have the V330. Here's my blog post: Epson Perfection V330 Photo scanner review
No idea what the difference between models is. I love that I can scan bigger drawings because the lid can be opened to 180°.

The print quality depends on what you're starting with - the original drawing. If you have a 8.5"x11" drawing, when you scan it at say 700dpi and enlarge it to 18"x24" at 300dpi (which is the standard for print in color) the quality will be fine, but what about the details? I mean, you're making every square inch of an image 4 times larger.. so every piece of grain, every irregularity in line etc. will become more visible. This print will be nice to look at from a distance, but when you come up close you'll see those details. If that's what you want, fine.

~KurtisLauwereys Aug 9, 2012 Student Traditional Artist

Thanks Nelchee! The fact that I can scan larger pictures makes me happy. When you scan larger images how do you do it? I'm afraid that the paper will lift off the sides and create some weird effects.

I'm just aiming for the highest quality. I've even considered doing the drawings across several pieces of paper and scanning them separately, then photoshopping the scans together. I don't do tons of small details in my more recent work though, so I'm not super concerned about amplifying everything to make it 4 times bigger.

=nelchee Aug 10, 2012 Professional General Artist

It's very simple, I've been doing this on my old scanner too, but its lid only opened to 90° so it was a bit more hassle.
The edge around the glass is not thick, only a few millimeters, so the paper lifts only a tiny bit toward the edges (there is some shadowing and distortion here), and there is enough overlap that I can stitch pieces in Photoshop and nobody can notice it.

Usually when scanning I take a book with white back (or place an extra sheet of paper, so the book color doesn't affect the scan) and press the drawing with it. Now I figured that since the white part of the lid can be removed because my scanner has a transparency scanning option, I can use this very lid to press the paper.

Don't work across several papers, use one large sheet and scan it in pieces. Just make sure to make some overlap between the pieces, maybe an inch. For Animus and Metamorphosis which are about 35x50cm it took me 6 pieces, but it wasn't difficult to piece them together.

Well, it's your decision, but maybe 4x bigger is a tad too much... 2x bigger doesn't sound like a too terrible loss of quality, but enlarge something 4 times and it won't be so great to examine it up close.

~KurtisLauwereys Aug 10, 2012 Student Traditional Artist

When you say you press it, do you mean you just put another piece of paper or the white lid on it and press the image as flat as you can against the glass?

Those 2 paintings look amazing, and you can't tell that they're stitched together at all in my opinion. Is there a specific tool to stitch them together in Photoshop? I'm not super Photoshop smart yet, but I'm learning.

Yeah I've decided not to go with the 8.5x11 enlarging since I can Photoshop bigger pieces together.

=nelchee Aug 11, 2012 Professional General Artist

Yep, that's what I do

Thank you! My process is something like this:
1. I scan everything at let's say 1200dpi.
2. I opet up all pieces in Photoshop.
3. I create a new file with of the size of my original painting in 1200dpi.
4. I copy all pieces in this new file and close all other windows.
5. I align the top left part along the edges - this layer is now the bottom one.
6. I select the blending mode of the following part (top right, for example) to "Darken", zoom in at 100% and move this layer around until the lines and colors match with the layer below. Then I use a soft eraser and erase the darker shadowy area around the edge and the two pieces blend together almost perfectly.
7. Repeat for the rest of the image.
8. I crop the edges and clean up the dust with a healing brush, do final color and contrast tweaking, resize to 300dpi and save the file.

~Mike-Sibley Aug 8, 2012

If you need really good results, ask your local commercial printer where they get their laser scans from. There'll probably be a pre-press house relatively near you that has a Laser Drum Scanner - and they can't be beaten for detail. I have all my work scanned to CD using that method.

Quick hint: Tell them you want the paper to be read as white - the scanners are so good that they'll pick up the tone of off-white paper as a value in the drawing.

Incidentally domestic scanners don't use DPI, they use PPI - pixels per inch - only inkjet printers printers use DPI as a resolution. And expect any domestic flat bed scanner to drop the ligtest 10% of your drawing or painting.

MIKE

~KurtisLauwereys Aug 8, 2012 Student Traditional Artist

Thanks Mike. I've called local print shops though and they weren't helpful. I live in an area where the arts aren't very prominent or important, so my options are very limited for the time being. All the places I've called specializing in this said that their scanners/printers run a bit hot and make the reds too red, or do other stupid things that sound like it's going to create a ton of unnecessary work for me.

What would be the best way to scan high quality images from home? I don't need things to be super big either. I'm not really aiming for anything much bigger than 18"x24" for now, so if there's a way to get an 18"x24" high quality print out of scanning an 8.5"x11" image, I'd love to know how. I have photoshop if that will help with anything.

~OldKingcroz Aug 8, 2012 Student General Artist

Most scanners use a system of dpi (dots per inch). This measures detail. I use a reletively cheap 600dpi scanner (Cannon 110) and its quite good for scanning drawings. Not an expert, but you should check the model's dpi and go with one with a higher ammount of detail possible. But scanners are scanners... You don't need the best one out there, really.

~KurtisLauwereys Aug 8, 2012 Student Traditional Artist

The scanners I'm looking at come either as 4800x9600 dpi resolution, or 4800 optical dpi resolution. I'm not sure what the difference is though. Would you happen to know?

~OldKingcroz Aug 8, 2012 Student General Artist

Unfortunately I do not XD I suggest you look for advice from Mike.

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