DSF

I've always scanned customers artwork on a small A4 scanner. it's a decent enough machine and Photoshop generally does a very good job of stitching together.

I'm considering a larger option that would make the process easier.

If anyone has any experience or opinions I'd appreciate it. Not looking to go crazy but as this market grows i can hopefully justify something better.

graphtec do some wide format scanners but they are serious money.
https://www.graphtecgb.co.uk/product/csx550-09-e/

Canon do a range of 'multifunction printers' that include a wide format scanner. Work out cheaper and they have the advantage of coming with a reasonable quality wide format graphics printer, which could add another revenue stream. Still a lot of money.
https://www.graphicdesignsupplies.co.uk ... -copy.html

The Epson 7710/15/20 range comes with an A3 scanner, which might be the cheap option.

Usually when you want to go bigger than A4, you get the studio lights and digital camera set up.

Justin, I take it you find the actual stitching process to be tedious. Would dedicated stitching software not be better?

webtrekker;136869 wrote:Justin, I take it you find the actual stitching process to be tedious. Would dedicated stitching software not be better?

No, I just use the Photomerge feature built into Photoshop which does a cracking job.

I will add my 2 cents to this, I hate my Canon printer/scanner, (MG6620) grey scale isn't bad, though I find mine scans too lightly even in grey scale, course there may be an adjustment that I have missed that would make it better but color scans are not as good as I got on my old Epson printer/scanner. Course I think part of the problem is the max dpi on this scanner is only 600 dpi, while my old Epson was 1200.

Whatever model you end up getting make sure it scans at least 1200 dpi and many scanners will now scan at 2400 dpi or higher. You don't need that level of scanning for the internet, in fact 600 dpi is still overkill for images for the internet, but if you want archival images of your work so that it could be printed then you need high resolution scans and 1200 is minimum there. I had a broken printer when I purchased the Canon, and needed something ASAP, no one in my area had an Epson in stock so I ended up with the Canon after not enough research.

If you want a large format scanner then you need a stand alone (printer/scanners don't come that size) I don't have the space to give to a stand alone scanner, but if you have the bucks to spend and the space then you should go for the stand alone.

Do you know what scanner your local print shop uses? Or do they just use a larger copier/printer to do the scanning? You will get better quality from a large format stand alone scanner.

Reading on-line reviews sounds like your best option. The problem is that scanning art isn't a standard application, well it sort of is, but it is a narrow field so reviews aren't likely to be exactly what you are looking for. Good luck and let us know what you end up with.

One last comment you are going to need to also invest in some software that will allow you to manipulate images, crop, rotate, shrink file sizes etc. There are free apps that will do the work, but you are going to need to spend the time to learn how to use them whatever you end up using. I use an older version of PhotoShop which is a bit overkill for your needs. But there are plenty of other programs/apps out there that will do the job.

We have an old Contex metre wide large format scanner, which we got on Ebay for £300 about 5-6 years ago. Worked well for a couple of years, but now past its best ... didn't come with the calibration charts, so is a very heavy door stop hidden under the cutting table now. Nice while it lasted though. Scanned at 500 dpi, so almost twice 300 dpi print resolution so we could scale up x2 OK.

I don't reckon dpi is a major concern now that AI scaling algorithms are becoming popular, such as AI Gigapixel, and the online Let's Enhance, which I'm starting to use more and more.

pisquee;138587 wrote:We have an old Contex metre wide large format scanner, which we got on Ebay for £300 about 5-6 years ago. Worked well for a couple of years, but now past its best ... didn't come with the calibration charts, so is a very heavy door stop hidden under the cutting table now. Nice while it lasted though. Scanned at 500 dpi, so almost twice 300 dpi print resolution so we could scale up x2 OK.

i searched in web. There are so many sites which they provide scanners. dunno which one is good to have.