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Scanning without a scanner?

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specimeat

Assistant executioner
(Please mods, move or delete if this is not the appropriate place, thank you in advance!)

OK, i don't have a readily available scanner that i can use for, huh, highly questionable material. And while i'm trying to learn DAZ 3D and the like, i still love to draw by hand and i have a couple ideas that i could use here. ;) So i have attempted to take pics of a quick sketch with my phone's camera and a (normal "commercial") digital camera and the results are... well, dismal. :( No matter how hard i try, the angle is wrong, some strokes have the weird habit of being barely visible or over-contrasted, the paper should be white but it shows every shade of grey, the colors are all funny... not to mention that it's too easy to cast your own shadow or the phone's / camera's on the entire thing, and if i use flash, then everything goes overexposed with a big ugly reflection.

i have tried with outdoors sunlight and my bedroom's lights without much improvement.

So... do you please know of any solution of the "you're silly, 'meat, just do this or that and problem solved" kind?
 
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(Please mods, move or delete if this is not the appropriate place, thank you in advance!)

OK, i don't have a readily available scanner that i can use for, huh, highly questionable material. And while i'm trying to learn DAZ 3D and the like, i still love to draw by hand and i have a couple ideas that i could use here. ;) So i have attempted to take pics of a quick sketch with my phone's camera and a (normal "commercial") digital camera and the results are... well, dismal. :( No matter how hard i try, the angle is wrong, some strokes have the weird habit of being barely visible or over-contrasted, the paper should be white but it shows every shade of grey, the colors are all funny... not to mention that it's too easy to cast your own shadow or the phone's / camera's on the entire thing, and if i use flash, then everything goes overexposed with a big ugly reflection.

i have tried with outdoors sunlight and my bedroom's lights without much improvement.

So... do you please know of any solution of the "you're silly, 'meat, just do this or that" kind?
Have you tried adjusting the exposure and contrast on your phone photos until you get what you’re looking for? Start with contrast. Because it should make the paper lighter Without losing your lines.
 
well the most important thing is probably avoid direct sunlight or any light that has too much contrast. This can cause reflections of all sort. Diffuse light (cloudy day, just sky without sun) is better.

Make sure your piece of paper is as flat as possible and is on a white background. It could be flat on the ground or vertical (such as literally fixed with magnets to your fridge door ;)

you need to make sure the orientation of your camera isn't angled ... photograph your paper right face on. The sensor of your camera needs to absolutely parallel to the paper.

Try to avoid lens distortion, you can work this out by photographing a grid of squares and making sure it looks right, and doesn't have a 'barrel' or 'pincushion' distortion. With consumer cameras you'll have to check this out by trial and error in different zoom settings.
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It's also possible of course to correct this in software later on but that's a lot of fiddling.

If you've made a photo and it looks too gray and washed out, Histogram functions in graphics programs are your friend. You can set the "white point" and "black point" and usually there is enough digital information to work a lot with.
 
Take a picture with your camera and convert into PDF


What do you do to scan documents without a scanner at home- You take a picture of it. Digital cameras can be used for the same purposes as flatbed scanners or integrated scanners. Sounds good? This may be the best way to scan documents without a scanner at home.

However, when compared directly to a real scanner, using a camera is subject factors like shadows, distortion, reflections, insufficient light and blur due to unstable hands and shaking the camera. However, it does offer the ultimate advantages of speed and portability and most importantly, this can be done right from your home.

Scanner apps - a much better way to scan


A much better way to scan documents without a scanner at home, is to use an app like PDF Scanner Pro by Appsverse. PDF Scanner Pro lets you scan any document like receipts, letters, bills, and contracts right from your smartphone camera and scanned documents will be digitally created with results exactly the same as a flatbed or dedicated scanner.

Here are some of the features of PDF Scanner Pro

  • Transform smartphone into scanner- Scan documents and receipts or any paper using your phone, Scan documents without a scanner at home
  • High quality scanning- Create crystal clear, high quality scans suitable for the most demanding business requirements.
  • Generate PDF - Generate PDF files from your scans. Turn receipts, documents, and any piece of paper into PDF documents
  • Share via email - Sharing a scan via email is easy. Simply tap on 'Email Scan' to send it to someone or yourself via email.
  • Convert to text with OCR - Use advanced OCR (Optical Character Recognition) feature to instantly convert your images into text.
Thats more features than you initially imagined to scan documents without a scanner at home, with PDF Scanner Pro.

Transform your smartphone into a document scanner at home


Scanning with PDF Scanner Pro is easy. Just hover your camera over the document you want to scan and PDF Scanner Pro will automatically detect the image and create a digital clone or copy of it in the app. Email the PDF file to yourself or anyone who require it from you.

PDF Scanner Pro is the top rated scanner app on the iOS App Store, with over 1 Million+ Downloads, 4.5 Stars and 1,200++ Ratings on the iOS App Store as of October 2018.

If you are still wondering how to scan documents without a scanner at home, you check out PDF Scanner Pro by Appsverse.
 
Have you tried adjusting the exposure and contrast on your phone photos until you get what you’re looking for? Start with contrast. Because it should make the paper lighter Without losing your lines.
Yep but it's still a mess. There're "waves" of grey shades everywhere interfering with the entire drawing, so if i try to change contrast, they get highly contrasted together with my strokes. And the strokes that already look "too contrasted" go crazy, i have an eye that looks like cut on the paper and other that is still barely visible ---or overwhelmed with the "grey waves" background.

If at least i could make the paper look white, i guess i could work most of the other stuff. But the only way to make the paper look white is using the flash ---and then everything disappears in overexposed white.
 
Yep but it's still a mess. There're "waves" of grey shades everywhere interfering with the entire drawing, so if i try to change contrast, they get highly contrasted together with my strokes. And the strokes that already look "too contrasted" go crazy, i have an eye that looks like cut on the paper and other that is still barely visible ---or overwhelmed with the "grey waves" background.

If at least i could make the paper look white, i guess i could work most of the other stuff. But the only way to make the paper look white is using the flash ---and then everything disappears in overexposed white.
Can you post a photo of one of your drawings (before adjustment) so we can see what you mean? :D
 
Hrm, I am using often "give-away" programs which are for free in a certain time in some German computer magazines and I possibly could solve all your problems.

For example, to make white paper white again, you could even use the Microsoft Office Picture Manager of all older "MS Office" versions.

For the same reason or for changing a lot of the intensity of strokes or colors, you could use this free German program, which is really good:

For changing or correcting the angles in a picture, you could use a program like "Perspective Pilot", which is relatively expensive > 30,- Euros, but sometimes to find for free in special computer magazines when you look for it.
 
1. Take a picture with cellphone and loading up on the pc.
2. Open the file in GraphicApp, here PaintShopPro
Image1.jpg

3. Choose Tool "Perspective correction"
Image2.jpg

4. Move the points to the edges.
Image3.jpg

5. Double cklick in the image will fix the perspective
Image4.jpg choose then the border-cutter

6. double click in the image and you will having a good image for publish.
Image5.jpg
 
You can usually take your art to your local copy center (Kinkos, Office Depot, Staples, FedEx center, etc) and use the self serve scanner/printers. They will now allow you to either Email them, or save them to USB drive. The default on most is to save as .pdf , but some allow you to save in other formats. Or you can convert from pdf to whatever you want with some free software.

My wife is in charge of a copy center at an office store, so we pretty much know the procedure. Don't ask the person at the desk to do it, use the self serve. You can ask for help in setting it up (maybe use some safe artwork, or another form). Most copy centers in the US will cost you about 25 cents per scan. You can pay with credit card at the machine, and never have to talk to a person, at all.
 
You can usually take your art to your local copy center (Kinkos, Office Depot, Staples, FedEx center, etc) and use the self serve scanner/printers.
I'd like to see their faces when specimeat walks into one of those centres and ask them to print out his or her "hihly questionable material" :D

EDIT: Didn't read the "self serve" part... still, I think I wouldn't be able to do that if it was me.
 
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