The secret to SCANNING

[Ambowife Designs]

LOL okay here's the secret to scanning

Number one have a good scanner, use the highest resolution you can.

Get a shoe box lid or the lid off of a copy paper box, something like that.

Put the item, say a bow, onto the scanner bed the side you want to see facing down.

Cover with the shoe box or lid (you could put white paper or black paper inside the lid to give a good contrast backdrop for extracting)

Don't close the lid of the scanner

get a dark cover (I use our old black sheets) make sure it's something that is thick enough to block out the light

scan at the highest quality you've got on your scanner (I do 800 ppi)

Make sure you take the cover off again once you are finished, don't want any fires or that.

now you have an image that isn't a squashed element and it should be really detailed at 100 percent.

Extract what you want and make sure it's 300ppi by copying the finished extraction onto a paper sized document.

Now trim and save as a png file.

If you want to recolor it just make a greyscale copy of it and recolor that.

[Maurine Stettler]

This is very helpful. Do you know if it matters if it's a "photo" scanner? My scanner wants to know if it's a photo vs. a magazine vs. slides, etc. Not sure what to choose to get the best scan -- I wish it had a choice of "element needed for digital scrapbooking!"

[Ambowife Designs]

I just do photo and I select platen (means the full bed of the scanner) Just try it this way and do a normal scan then see how it comes out, try a ribbon first since they should be easy to extract too. you can do papers, cardstock, as long as you are scanning plain non descript stuff, don't go scanning any barbie dolls or disney stuff. nothing that is branded

[kimberkatt]

ROFL @ Maurine! Ya know... the way Digi Scrapping is soo popular right now, they may start making electronics specifically for US!! Wouldn't that be too cool?!! :D

[Maurine Stettler]

Thanks so much -- I'm off to try this with fingers crossed! I really appreciate all the help you are giving us, and how quick you are to do so! Thanks again!

[Min]

ummm - I tried it with a small box (2 in high) that's white inside. The scans I got had a black background. Do you think the box was too high? Any other weird things I might have been doing? LOL

[Flower Scraps]

When i've done it in the past - it does need to be pretty flat - I made my box about 1 inch deep and it was still kinda grey behind (which worked fine since my items were colored.

ummm - I tried it with a small box (2 in high) that's white inside. The scans I got had a black background. Do you think the box was too high? Any other weird things I might have been doing? LOL

[kimberkatt]

Did you guys remember to put the heavy fabric over it to block out the light? The more light that gets through, the darker your background color will be. :)

[Monika]

ummm - I tried it with a small box (2 in high) that's white inside. The scans I got had a black background. Do you think the box was too high? Any other weird things I might have been doing? LOL

The closer the cover to your item you're scanning the better and yes, don't forget the dark fabric!

[Ambowife Designs]

Yes that's right if you don't block out all the light that will result in dark shadows. If it is all black I have no idea how you came to get that. (scratching my head here)

Good luck with it ;)

[Flower Scraps]

I hadn't tried the dark fabric trick. :)

[Min]

The dark fabric was there but I'll try again with a smaller box - thanks for you help! :)