The Framers Forum

Hi

A friend has asked me if I know of anyone with a large format scanner in the East/North Yorks area, but I don't, so I thought I'd ask you good folks!

I *think* he needs A3+, but I won't know for sure until tomorrow, since I'm (...what's the opposite of 'sunning'?...) myself in the Lake District this weekend....

Cheers

Tim

Immersing yourself Tim?

Hi
I Have used John Mitchell a few times he is Sally Mitchell's son website dog art.com. I think he has an Ao scanner based in Yorkshire

We have an A4 Epson V750 scanner which when we get big stuff in we just scan in bits then stitch it all back together in Photoshop.
Up to now no one has ever notced and to be honest when it's done I struggle myself to see where the joins are as they become invisible so anyone in your area with an A4 scanner and a little photoshop knowledge could also probably help.

Stitching is good , I have a 10 ft x 2ft canvas coming in tomorrow for scanning

The simple alternative is just to photograph the large item. The printing industry used to employ a large format copy camera either on a bench or floor rail set-up before the change to the relatively less skilled scanning techniques now used. The traditional lighting and lining up techniques are still worth exploring if you have an interest in photography.

Thanks for all the responses chaps - we'd already tried the 'multiple A4 scan' route, but as anything larger than A4 doesn't sit flat on the bed of my Canoscan scanner (there's about a 0.5mm lip arounf the actual glass), we were losing some resolution right at the edges. I did suggest cutting up the original into pieces smaller than A4, but that was vetoed. Fortunately, another photographer contact knew a guy who knew a guy who had a drum scanner, so I pointed my client in his direction.

I use the scan & stitch technique on a regular basis. If you overlap the scans by about 20% and then crop the each image to remove the border area it will work. As a backup I will normally photograph (telephoto lens) the work using the same system, small chunks, overlap and crop. In this instance you are removing edge distortion caused by the lens. Flatbed scanners have limited depth of focus so a picture such as acrylic/pallet knife may be better photographed as the lens will have greater depth of field.

We have an A3 scanner and we "scan+stitch" Its really good

I can confirm the Mitchell's scanner is awesome (John / Sally). It's 40x50" IIRC. I think it's now up & running in their new premises in Tuxford, on the A1, north Notts. tel 01777 838 234.