Scanner problem

[Cuddly]

Hi all,

I was wondering if you could help me out with a problem I seem to be having with my scanner. I recently did some art on my new EON boards using an HB pencil and the pencils came out lighter than expected. No worries, I'll just need to switch to a B pencil the next time.

So I scan the art using my usual settings and I get this:

http://www.cuddlyfamily.com/don/gallery/testscan001.jpg

And no matter what scanner settings I tweak, I can't seem to get a decent scan. Photoshop can't do anything either.

So tonight, I tried lifting the paper off the surface of the scanner and let it scan with about a 1cm clearance from the glass surface of the scanner. And I get this:

http://www.cuddlyfamily.com/don/gallery/testscan002.jpg

Now, it seems to me that the problem may be that the scanner lamp is too strong. Either that or the light is reflecting off the surface of the pencil lead on the paper. But I can't be scanning things by holding them 1cm off the glass.

Is there any way I can control the strength of the lamp? Changing the brightness setting in the scanning software doesn't seem to make much of a difference. It certainly can't produce such a dramatic change in the scans like in the two examples above.

Anyone with any ideas?

[xadrian]

Did you try scanning at higher or lower DPI's or scan in color with higher bit rates? All that?

What kind of scanner is it? I've never heard of a lamp being too bright.

[Chris Piers]

I'm sure you could correct the first scan in PhotoShop by adjusting the light levels. Just do a high res scan in color, switch it to greyscale after scanning and hit Ctrl+L to mess around with the contrast.

[dfbovey]

You may want to email the tech support people who manufactured your scanner. I've never had a scanner do something like that.

[xadrian]

You know what it is, that guy's video camera is screwing up the scanner. I'd erase that bit and try again.

[penciljack]

It's probably worth checking out your usual settings. I know a lot of folks use the scanner's control panel to lighten up and clean up the scan before they get it in Photoshop, but I've always preferred to capture as much info as possible with the scanner and then make the adjustments in Photoshop.

Anyway, it would seem likely that you've got your brightness/contrast setting skewed slightly in your scanner's control panel. Try adjusting that and see if you get any results.

[Baloodoo Bill]

I'd strongly recommend NOT using a B pencil. Stick with an HB, or better an F or H. B's are dark enough to require heavy erasing before scanning and ink doesn't take the abuse it use to.

This strikes me as Pilot Error. I don't mean that as a cheap crack, just that modern electronics are so complicated it's easy to miss something. Of course, as a Mac user, I'm used to all troubleshooting coming down to pilot error.

Check your software manual for the setting of "White point/Black Point" Set the White Point on the darkest white pixel and the Black Point on the darkest black pixel. This will give you a near bitmap scan. Adjust with the Histogram or Levels.

If you don't have White Point/Black Point settings, go straight to your Histogram or Levels. Adjusting the outer buttons towards the middle will darken blacks or lighten whites depending on the button.

You could switch to blue pencil. When scanned with the RED filter it shows up as black, when scanned with the BLUE filter (after inks) it disappears.

[GIGAFATTYMON]

Settings on a scanner are there to make you feel you are in control, but using them is exactly when you lose it, go back the default settings the only thing you should be messing with is DPI and occasionally colour/greyscale.

Like PJ says Photoshop is where you tweak images, your scanner is just to get them there.