Scanning Documents with a Digital Camera
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I have several important and private documents I would like to try 'scanning' with my digital camera. On or two very quick experiments shows image quality and size are excellent. Two problems I found though were the yellowing of white paper - I was advised not to use the flash, so the the ambient light colour in the room seems to have dominated. What should I do about lighting? Use an artificial electric lamp with a very white light, or use sunlight in a much more brightly lit room? My other problem is crinkles and folds in the documents that clearly show in the 'scans'. One's first though is to place a piece of glass over the document to flatten it, but that brings the risk of reflections. Is there some kind of material I can use in place of glass that is highly transparent, but non-reflective? Something I could get from a photography or art shop, or maybe a printing supply shop?
1. use a tripod; have the camera and paper at 90o (have the paper flat on the table for example). 2. If you want to use a glass, you look at your local framing shop for "museum" quality glass that have less reflection (there are different quality of those) 3. Use ambient lighting and/or a diffuser for your flash or point your flash at the ceiling for an indirect flash; this will reduce the amount of shadowing of the folds and crinkles. 4. Shoot raw and adjust the white balance in post-processing. Also, don't try to iron out the crinkles...
Nihil obstat
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I'm a contractor that's been here a month and attracted attention by taking too much leave, and being late from transport problems. I don't think I'll be ordering anything until I release some software.
Just order it and be damned, they'll be awestruck by your balls and not say anything. Honest. Here is an email that I sent to my boss 4 years ago;
Quote:
Now that we have a 'waterit' e-mail account, it would make sense that we have some sort of method of monitoring this if it is to be useful in catching problems as they develop. It is relatively simple to connect to the Exchange Server and monitor the various folders we have set up and then display the results of this in a webpage. This web-page would poll at whatever interval we require and display whatever we want, it could flash if e-mails are received that could possibly indicate an immediate problem, it could display totals so we can see what is going on in various systems. It would also be feasible to write scripts to monitor activity on the servers so we could see any problems developing with disc space, DB activity, backups or whatever. If we were to have this setup and working then obviously we need a screen on it, were it to be a normal monitor then obviously that would require someone to walk past and look at it. What we ideally need is a big wall-mounted screen that is clearly visible from everyone's desk (next to the clock is an area that immediately presents itself. This would mean less time spent checking things to see how they are progressing, and immediate notification to the room, and thereby to whoever is present and currently holding responsibility to do something. It would also mean that we could make it flash red, and sound a siren. This, I firmly believe, would be a good idea.
The response I received was;
Quote:
Chris, Find out the cost (ballpark) and I will do a business case. Ade.
And we ended up with a big telly in our office that had freeview and could quickly be switched to the monitoring screen should the need arise. We never did get around to creating anywhere near as exciting a monitoring suite as described. But at least we had the equipment to do so at some point in the future.
Every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends. Shed Petition[^]
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1. use a tripod; have the camera and paper at 90o (have the paper flat on the table for example). 2. If you want to use a glass, you look at your local framing shop for "museum" quality glass that have less reflection (there are different quality of those) 3. Use ambient lighting and/or a diffuser for your flash or point your flash at the ceiling for an indirect flash; this will reduce the amount of shadowing of the folds and crinkles. 4. Shoot raw and adjust the white balance in post-processing. Also, don't try to iron out the crinkles...
Nihil obstat
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I have several important and private documents I would like to try 'scanning' with my digital camera. On or two very quick experiments shows image quality and size are excellent. Two problems I found though were the yellowing of white paper - I was advised not to use the flash, so the the ambient light colour in the room seems to have dominated. What should I do about lighting? Use an artificial electric lamp with a very white light, or use sunlight in a much more brightly lit room? My other problem is crinkles and folds in the documents that clearly show in the 'scans'. One's first though is to place a piece of glass over the document to flatten it, but that brings the risk of reflections. Is there some kind of material I can use in place of glass that is highly transparent, but non-reflective? Something I could get from a photography or art shop, or maybe a printing supply shop?
If you have a half decent phone camera, try this.... CamScanner[^] Works well.
I are n00b.
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I'm a contractor that's been here a month and attracted attention by taking too much leave, and being late from transport problems. I don't think I'll be ordering anything until I release some software.
Brady Kelly wrote:
I'm a contractor that's been here a month and attracted attention by taking too much leave, and being late from transport problems
And when you are at work, spending all your time dicking about with your phone and personal documents?
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I have several important and private documents I would like to try 'scanning' with my digital camera. On or two very quick experiments shows image quality and size are excellent. Two problems I found though were the yellowing of white paper - I was advised not to use the flash, so the the ambient light colour in the room seems to have dominated. What should I do about lighting? Use an artificial electric lamp with a very white light, or use sunlight in a much more brightly lit room? My other problem is crinkles and folds in the documents that clearly show in the 'scans'. One's first though is to place a piece of glass over the document to flatten it, but that brings the risk of reflections. Is there some kind of material I can use in place of glass that is highly transparent, but non-reflective? Something I could get from a photography or art shop, or maybe a printing supply shop?
You can use a white-balance correction tool during post-processing to get the yellow color whitened up :-)
Regards, Nish
My technology blog: voidnish.wordpress.com
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If you have a half decent phone camera, try this.... CamScanner[^] Works well.
I are n00b.
SinghUlarity... wrote:
Works well.
Uhm, it won't work on any non-Android phone.
Regards, Nish
My technology blog: voidnish.wordpress.com
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SinghUlarity... wrote:
Works well.
Uhm, it won't work on any non-Android phone.
Regards, Nish
My technology blog: voidnish.wordpress.com
You deserve it if you're using a non-android phone ;P
I are n00b.
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You deserve it if you're using a non-android phone ;P
I are n00b.
Well I've used iPhones and now a Windows Phone, and I rarely install apps. So even if I had an Android phone, I'd not install this. I only use the browser and email apps irrespective of the phone I use!
Regards, Nish
My technology blog: voidnish.wordpress.com
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Brady Kelly wrote:
I'm a contractor that's been here a month and attracted attention by taking too much leave, and being late from transport problems
And when you are at work, spending all your time dicking about with your phone and personal documents?
I'm not dicking about at work with the scanning, simply asking so that I might have a few responses when I get home and really get scanning.
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Well I've used iPhones and now a Windows Phone, and I rarely install apps. So even if I had an Android phone, I'd not install this. I only use the browser and email apps irrespective of the phone I use!
Regards, Nish
My technology blog: voidnish.wordpress.com
I don't know much about IE on Windows phone but Safari on the iPhone is terrible, when I was on iOS I avoided it at any cost. Any particular reason for avoiding apps or you're just too lazy to be arsed into installing any? :confused:
I are n00b.
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I don't know much about IE on Windows phone but Safari on the iPhone is terrible, when I was on iOS I avoided it at any cost. Any particular reason for avoiding apps or you're just too lazy to be arsed into installing any? :confused:
I are n00b.
Part of it is being lazy, the other bit is I am not very tech-savvy when it comes to using gadgets (mostly due to lack of interest). Kinda ironic I guess given that I spend most of my time writing code, including on mobile devices. That said, I did get a Nexus 7 for my son and helped him install several games. So I am familiar with Google's app store.
Regards, Nish
My technology blog: voidnish.wordpress.com
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I have several important and private documents I would like to try 'scanning' with my digital camera. On or two very quick experiments shows image quality and size are excellent. Two problems I found though were the yellowing of white paper - I was advised not to use the flash, so the the ambient light colour in the room seems to have dominated. What should I do about lighting? Use an artificial electric lamp with a very white light, or use sunlight in a much more brightly lit room? My other problem is crinkles and folds in the documents that clearly show in the 'scans'. One's first though is to place a piece of glass over the document to flatten it, but that brings the risk of reflections. Is there some kind of material I can use in place of glass that is highly transparent, but non-reflective? Something I could get from a photography or art shop, or maybe a printing supply shop?
I set the camera on a tripod and use long exposure times. I've succeeded in 'scanning' even nearly unreadable papers using this method. This works even in a dark room, given the exposure times are long enough, and the sensor in your camera is powerful enough. I use a DSLR though, but I presume that even a point-and-shoot camera should be able to produce good results. PS: You'll need to do some post processing. But it will be simple enough, and you could get it done with something like Picasa or Paint .NET.
"Real men drive manual transmission" - Rajesh.
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I have several important and private documents I would like to try 'scanning' with my digital camera. On or two very quick experiments shows image quality and size are excellent. Two problems I found though were the yellowing of white paper - I was advised not to use the flash, so the the ambient light colour in the room seems to have dominated. What should I do about lighting? Use an artificial electric lamp with a very white light, or use sunlight in a much more brightly lit room? My other problem is crinkles and folds in the documents that clearly show in the 'scans'. One's first though is to place a piece of glass over the document to flatten it, but that brings the risk of reflections. Is there some kind of material I can use in place of glass that is highly transparent, but non-reflective? Something I could get from a photography or art shop, or maybe a printing supply shop?
You could iron the page if it is badly creased. Or get some of that non-reflective glass/plastic that picture framing shops are always trying to sell. Wouldn't it be a lot easier just to use a scanner? I mean printers with scanners are so cheap these days that they are almost disposable.
"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair. nils illegitimus carborundum me, me, me
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I have several important and private documents I would like to try 'scanning' with my digital camera. On or two very quick experiments shows image quality and size are excellent. Two problems I found though were the yellowing of white paper - I was advised not to use the flash, so the the ambient light colour in the room seems to have dominated. What should I do about lighting? Use an artificial electric lamp with a very white light, or use sunlight in a much more brightly lit room? My other problem is crinkles and folds in the documents that clearly show in the 'scans'. One's first though is to place a piece of glass over the document to flatten it, but that brings the risk of reflections. Is there some kind of material I can use in place of glass that is highly transparent, but non-reflective? Something I could get from a photography or art shop, or maybe a printing supply shop?
Could you just take it to a Kinkos or some such and ask for the document to be scanned. It'd probably be pretty cheap. I think you'll get a more professional result out of something like that than doing all this work to use your camera.
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I have several important and private documents I would like to try 'scanning' with my digital camera. On or two very quick experiments shows image quality and size are excellent. Two problems I found though were the yellowing of white paper - I was advised not to use the flash, so the the ambient light colour in the room seems to have dominated. What should I do about lighting? Use an artificial electric lamp with a very white light, or use sunlight in a much more brightly lit room? My other problem is crinkles and folds in the documents that clearly show in the 'scans'. One's first though is to place a piece of glass over the document to flatten it, but that brings the risk of reflections. Is there some kind of material I can use in place of glass that is highly transparent, but non-reflective? Something I could get from a photography or art shop, or maybe a printing supply shop?
I've never had much luck with that, Brady. Glare, color shifts, keystoning, or some other damned thing always interferes. The best I've managed so far happened yesterday, when I needed to get a signed document on company letterhead to a government agency in a hurry. The scanner isn't working, the document is in Word format, and the fax machine is too poor quality to serve. So I signed the printed document, photographed my signature with my phone, emailed the picture to myself, cropped, resized, rotated and color-corrected the image on my desktop, then pasted it into the Word document. It looked as good as the original, so I pdf'd it and emailed it off, and no one has questioned its validity. :-D I do plan to keep my signature file locked in my safe, on a thumb drive, and no images of it on my desktop. :suss:
Will Rogers never met me.
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Maximilien wrote:
Also, don't try to iron out the crinkles...
This is also sound advice on scrotum care.
Every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends. Shed Petition[^]
ChrisElston wrote:
Maximilien wrote:
Also, don't try to iron out the crinkles...
This is also sound advice on scrotum care.
Ouch. X|
Bob Dole
The internet is a great way to get on the net.
:doh: 2.0.82.7292 SP6a
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You can use a white-balance correction tool during post-processing to get the yellow color whitened up :-)
Regards, Nish
My technology blog: voidnish.wordpress.com
What could I use for post procesing, that has nice white balance correction?
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What could I use for post procesing, that has nice white balance correction?
Gimp is pretty good. Just take Colors / Auto / White Balance and it nearly always does a very good job.
Regards, Nish
My technology blog: voidnish.wordpress.com
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I have several important and private documents I would like to try 'scanning' with my digital camera. On or two very quick experiments shows image quality and size are excellent. Two problems I found though were the yellowing of white paper - I was advised not to use the flash, so the the ambient light colour in the room seems to have dominated. What should I do about lighting? Use an artificial electric lamp with a very white light, or use sunlight in a much more brightly lit room? My other problem is crinkles and folds in the documents that clearly show in the 'scans'. One's first though is to place a piece of glass over the document to flatten it, but that brings the risk of reflections. Is there some kind of material I can use in place of glass that is highly transparent, but non-reflective? Something I could get from a photography or art shop, or maybe a printing supply shop?