Re: Reflective scanning questions...
Re: Reflective scanning questions...
- Subject: Re: Reflective scanning questions...
- From: <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2003 11:09:52 -0700 (PDT)
We are using two Epson 1640XLs for scanning reflective materials, mostly
B&W photos and written documents at the UC Berkeley Library, for digital
projects.
>
1. How important is optical density for reflective artwork? The originals
we
scan are painted artwork and illustrations, and collages. Scanning actual
photos is rare. The 1640XL has a 3.6 Dmax. It's hard for me to visualize
what that figure means for comparisons.
******
I don't think there's any problem with Dmax for reflective copy, 3.0 would
be very dark, and this scanner seems to do pretty well with separating
dark tones in photos. However, it does clip slightly at the high end for
very low densities, like white photo paper with brighteners - apparently
it's calibration procedure sets maximum white to something like 0.04D
>
2. Is it really important to have a high-end flatbed for reflective work,
or
would a more moderate scanner, like the 1640XL, do the trick? I feel
reflective artwork doesn't need super-high resolutions, like you would
need
from a film scanner.
********
1600ppi gives a lot of pixels for anything bigger than a business card
>
3. It's very important for us to scan great textures, like paper
textures,
cloth, collages, small objects, etc. The high-end flatbeds brag about
using
XY scanning, which is good because there's no sweet spot, but in my
experience (we have an EverSmart also), produces inferior textures. I feel
this is because since it captures in two directions, the texture gets
"flattened out". A cheaper scanner that only scans one way produces
modeling
shadows across the texture, thus accentuating it nicely. Anyone agree,
disagree?
*********
I believe the issue is how many lights the scanner has. The 1640 has only
one, which gives the nice soft modeling you mention - it would be great
for collages, I know it shows papyrus fibers up nicely. If a paper has any
"tooth" this scanner will show it. A scanner with two lights (one on
either side of the active scan area) gives the flat results you don't care
for.
-Dan Johnston
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