I have a small problem. I'm digitizing/scanning all my old pictures that were taken before they had negatives. I was able to scan most of my pictures that were small enough to scan with my HP Scanjet 4c scanner. I have two old portraits that are 20" x 16" and is on a thick cardboard stock. I took it to a kinkos, but they can't scan anything that thick. Can anyone assist me in getting these two portraits scanned. I am trying to keep the costs down, hopefully below twenty dollars per portrait. I would really appreciate any and all assistance with this issue. Thank You. David
May sound silly but can you not just take a digital picture of the actual picture it is large enough and hopefully you wont lose that much quality.
I agree. You should use a decent quality digital SLR. I would also suggest taking a number photos - vary the exposures and do a few in direct sun light and some in the shade. That would increase your odds at capturing the full range of tonality of the original.
That would be nice, but I don't own a digital camera. The only digital camera I have is my iPhone 4, which isn't all the good. Thank you for your suggestions.
It reqiures some work and some skill but you can do it with your scannner. If the picture has white frame you can use it to draw marker lines. If it has not, stitch to it a ~1" white paper outer border on the back of it so you can use it to draw the markers. Divide the big picture 2x3 zones by drawing markers on the outer frame. The best way is to draw a border line around the picture ~1 cm from the picture edge. Make sure the line is perfectly parallel to the border of the picture. Than split the image in half on the long side (22/2=11) and in three the short side (18/3=6) by crossing the outer frame line on each edge. Again, make sure the lines are parallel to the picture border. Your scanner maximum document size is 8.5 by 14 inches so it fits perfectly and have plenty room to overlap. Scan each part ensuring the markers lines are visible in each scan so you can us them to line them up, overlap each marker and stitch them using some photo stitcher/panorama maker program find on Google. When all is lined up you can crop out and discard the border than save the final picture. Here's a little sketch how should look your scanning zones. Hope this helps.
Try a photography shop, like a portrait studio, or any professional photographer, they could accomodate you I'm sure. I think they all use digital cameras anymore.
If you can find a large enough scanner, then do that. As having tried photographing drawings and paintings, I will have to say that it takes a lot of patience. Museums use a sort of open scanner to digitize works. It ensures lighting is even. You will never get even lighting with photographing. You also have to correct barreling and other distortions. They are VERY evident when photographing art and photos with regular digital cameras and cheap lenses (like the ones typically bundled with cameras.) My recommendation is to scan it in pieces and stitch it together with Photoshop or some stitching tool. Make sure to lock the exposure and focus of your scanner. Vuescan is a good piece of software for scanning.