Places you can get high quality scans of artwork? 0

[Tnexus]

I'd like to get scans of some of the OA I have, but don't have a scanner to do it. I tried using the photocopier at a Staples, but the results turned out utter garbage. Anyone have any other ideas or experience with this?

[Will_K]

I've never used it but Camscanner is a commonly used phone app.

You can search these forums for various opinions.

[Twanj]

If you have an iPhone, Notes can "scan"

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210336

[Andahaion]

I use the camscanner app pretty much exclusively. Works for my purposes. 

[Aahz]

I've been using the Microsoft Lens on my iPhone.  Since I have a Microsoft 365 account, download and use is free.  It has been super ... especially with oversize pieces.

[BCarter27]

On 7/12/2023 at 5:52 PM, Tnexus said:

Anyone have any other ideas or experience with this?

Try a local mom & pop print shop. They should be able to sit with you and run a scan to a 600dpi TIFF file.

[Bridom]

I've had luck with local print shops that do blueprints and other oversized items.

[D Parker]

Do you have a decent public/university library? I have two near me with 11x17 scanners that can do beautiful scans.

[alxjhnsn]

You can get an all-in-one scanner/printer/fax for less than $250.

I use an Epson WF-7710 that cost me $180 + tax on sale at Office Depot.

[MagnusX]

I use the public Library, they have great scanners. 

[Dr. Balls]

You can also scan and "stitch" the images together (if the scanner is not 11x17), I believe they make scanning software now that does it - I used to do that by hand in the olden days using Photoshop.

If you want an at-home solution (I would not trust handing my artwork over to a copy monkey), I would suggest buying an iPhone tripod, setting your artwork on the floor and taking a picture on your phone parallel to the art (and light it properly). If you're not looking for super high resolution, this would work pretty well for reproductions.

You could also use this same setup if you have a DSLR camera. A place I worked at would shoot the artwork that was too fragile for the drum scanner this way, and it was high res for print production.

[Randall Dowling]

On 7/14/2023 at 7:04 PM, Dr. Balls said:

You can also scan and "stitch" the images together (if the scanner is not 11x17), I believe they make scanning software now that does it - I used to do that by hand in the olden days using Photoshop.

If you want an at-home solution (I would not trust handing my artwork over to a copy monkey), I would suggest buying an iPhone tripod, setting your artwork on the floor and taking a picture on your phone parallel to the art (and light it properly). If you're not looking for super high resolution, this would work pretty well for reproductions.

You could also use this same setup if you have a DSLR camera. A place I worked at would shoot the artwork that was too fragile for the drum scanner this way, and it was high res for print production.

As I was looking at the various threads, this is what I saw for the OA forum.  Naturally, I was interested in what you had to say on the matter.

[Tnexus]

Thanks all for the suggestions. Not sure why I didn't think of a library, but I may try that.

I also messed around with Microsoft Lens, and overall I think it worked well too. For some reason I'm only getting 500 kilobyte files with about a 4k resolution camera though. Seems a bit smaller size than it should be.

[GreatEscape]

When I submit hi-res OA scans for IDW Artists Editions, I go to Fedex and scan 11 x 17 pages up to 13MB jpeg, saved direct to USB flash drive. DIY so I’m the only one touching art (be sure to clean scanner glass) Easy, peasy…10 seconds, $0.80 per scan.  If needed, I covert to TIFF files in Photoshop. 

[Dr. Balls]

I thought I would add to this thread - I bought an HP 7440 wide-format printer awhile back and have been (slowly) doing overlays, scanning artwork, etc. UP until this weekend, I hadn't used the scanner (this thread actually got me going on that) - and figured I would at least report my findings:

The 11x17 scanner bed is excellent. Scanning 11x17 bitmap at 1200DPI yields a very impressive line art reproduction. The one criticism I have is that when you print edge-to-edge, it actually enlarges the size of the artwork to fit to the edge, so it's not really a true reproduction in terms of size. But print quality is very impressive.

I have run heavy cardstock through at the "premium" paper setting and it outputs just fine. I have also run acetate overlay through it to create overlays for original art, and those are also very nicely produced. The overlays look great on the original art with the exception of not being able to print 'white' to create knockouts on the overlay to block out the OA underneath, but I'll figure out something for that later.

I spent $25 and bought the VueScan application for greater control of the scanning abilities of the scanner, and that was also money well spent.

I have like 40-50 pieces that I plan on reproducing for myself (so I can put the original away and display the reproductions in frames), so investing in this printer made sense - it was only $300-$400 and it does everything I need it to, and I can do it on my own time. Setting up the printer maybe took an hour max, and it was pretty easy. I spent more time trying to figure out where it goes because it's kinda large - but for an 11x17 scanner, it can be a carpshoot - this one turned out to be a good investment.