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?
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.
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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?
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Set the white balance on the camera. I'm shocked at how few people actually do this, or do it in editing.
Until today I couldn't figure where to set the white balance. It's greyed out in the normal settings, and you have to go into 'deep settings'.
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Until today I couldn't figure where to set the white balance. It's greyed out in the normal settings, and you have to go into 'deep settings'.
It's typically a very manual feature on most new cameras. I've pulled off some great shots using it. My professional photographer friend showed me that he carried around a white sheet of paper in his pocket. When in strange or bad lighting, he would whip it out at arm's length to set the white balance, then get his picture. I didn't mean it in a mean way, I'm just surprised at the amount of people that discuss the same issue on all sorts of forums, and rarely do people ever mention this feature.
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It's typically a very manual feature on most new cameras. I've pulled off some great shots using it. My professional photographer friend showed me that he carried around a white sheet of paper in his pocket. When in strange or bad lighting, he would whip it out at arm's length to set the white balance, then get his picture. I didn't mean it in a mean way, I'm just surprised at the amount of people that discuss the same issue on all sorts of forums, and rarely do people ever mention this feature.
My biggest problem is paralax. I can't seem to get the picture parallel to the document. It always looks skewed; now that is going to take a tripod, which will only happen after payday, or just lots of practice, and a trip to the local print shop for the currently needed scan. It's still interesting though and I will continue as a little hobby.
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Can you not back light it somehow? Place it on glass with a light underneath it, then more glass on top? Isn't that kind of how scanners work?
Every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends. Shed Petition[^]
I was going to mention that as well. Many all-in-one printers can scan images. I've found the quality to be good enough and if it isn't, any half-decent imaging software can make corrections without losing much of the original warts and all.
"I do not have to forgive my enemies, I have had them all shot." — Ramón Maria Narváez (1800-68). "I don't need to shoot my enemies, I don't have any." - Me (2012).