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I have several important and private documents I would like to try 'scanning' with my digital camera. On or two very quick experiments shows image quality and size are excellent.
Two problems I found though were the yellowing of white paper - I was advised not to use the flash, so the the ambient light colour in the room seems to have dominated. What should I do about lighting? Use an artificial electric lamp with a very white light, or use sunlight in a much more brightly lit room?
My other problem is crinkles and folds in the documents that clearly show in the 'scans'. One's first though is to place a piece of glass over the document to flatten it, but that brings the risk of reflections. Is there some kind of material I can use in place of glass that is highly transparent, but non-reflective? Something I could get from a photography or art shop, or maybe a printing supply shop?
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Can you not back light it somehow?
Place it on glass with a light underneath it, then more glass on top?
Isn't that kind of how scanners work?
Every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends.
Shed Petition[ ^]
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I was going to mention that as well. Many all-in-one printers can scan images. I've found the quality to be good enough and if it isn't, any half-decent imaging software can make corrections without losing much of the original warts and all.
"I do not have to forgive my enemies, I have had them all shot." — Ramón Maria Narváez (1800-68).
"I don't need to shoot my enemies, I don't have any." - Me (2012).
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clickity[^]
Panic, Chaos, Destruction. My work here is done.
Drink. Get drunk. Fall over - P O'H
OK, I will win to day or my name isn't Ethel Crudacre! - DD Ethel Crudacre
I cannot live by bread alone. Bacon and ketchup are needed as well. - Trollslayer
Have a bit more patience with newbies. Of course some of them act dumb - they're often *students*, for heaven's sake - Terry Pratchett
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You could always just... you know... use a scanner. It is what they're designed for after all. A cheap 3 in 1 printer is roughly £35 in the UK. I cant see them being much more expensive anywhere else civilised.
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Or just do what normal people do and use the equipment at work.
Every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends.
Shed Petition[ ^]
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The equipment at work doesn't do colour scanning. 
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I take it you're not allowed to order one then?
Making up bullshit business cases for something I want at work is a specialty of mine.
Every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends.
Shed Petition[ ^]
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I'm a contractor that's been here a month and attracted attention by taking too much leave, and being late from transport problems. I don't think I'll be ordering anything until I release some software.
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Honest.
Here is an email that I sent to my boss 4 years ago;
Quote: Now that we have a 'waterit' e-mail account, it would make sense that we have some sort of method of monitoring this if it is to be useful in catching problems as they develop.
It is relatively simple to connect to the Exchange Server and monitor the various folders we have set up and then display the results of this in a webpage.
This web-page would poll at whatever interval we require and display whatever we want, it could flash if e-mails are received that could possibly indicate an immediate problem, it could display totals so we can see what is going on in various systems.
It would also be feasible to write scripts to monitor activity on the servers so we could see any problems developing with disc space, DB activity, backups or whatever.
If we were to have this setup and working then obviously we need a screen on it, were it to be a normal monitor then obviously that would require someone to walk past and look at it.
What we ideally need is a big wall-mounted screen that is clearly visible from everyone's desk (next to the clock is an area that immediately presents itself.
This would mean less time spent checking things to see how they are progressing, and immediate notification to the room, and thereby to whoever is present and currently holding responsibility to do something.
It would also mean that we could make it flash red, and sound a siren.
This, I firmly believe, would be a good idea.
The response I received was;
Quote: Chris,
Find out the cost (ballpark) and I will do a business case.
Ade.
And we ended up with a big telly in our office that had freeview and could quickly be switched to the monitoring screen should the need arise. We never did get around to creating anywhere near as exciting a monitoring suite as described.
But at least we had the equipment to do so at some point in the future.
Every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends.
Shed Petition[ ^]
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Brady Kelly wrote: I'm a contractor that's been here a month and attracted attention by taking too much leave, and being late from transport problems
And when you are at work, spending all your time dicking about with your phone and personal documents?
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I'm not dicking about at work with the scanning, simply asking so that I might have a few responses when I get home and really get scanning.
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I have a brand new camera I've hardly used. I just thought it would be an interesting experiment.
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Well, what I usually do is pin the paper to a cork board or similar (to keep it flat), set the white balance in the camera based of the paper I'm shooting (if you don't have a manual white balance setting just pick the closest preset) and take the shot. If I can be bothered I'll even put the camera on a Tripod so that I can line up the paper properly.
As for the pins in the corner of the page I just edit them out after.
If using a tripod you don't need to worry about having a bright light shining on your papers (which may cause shadows on some creases) since you can just allow the camera to use a slower shutter speed.
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1. use a tripod; have the camera and paper at 90o (have the paper flat on the table for example).
2. If you want to use a glass, you look at your local framing shop for "museum" quality glass that have less reflection (there are different quality of those)
3. Use ambient lighting and/or a diffuser for your flash or point your flash at the ceiling for an indirect flash; this will reduce the amount of shadowing of the folds and crinkles.
4. Shoot raw and adjust the white balance in post-processing.
Also, don't try to iron out the crinkles...
Nihil obstat
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Maximilien wrote: Also, don't try to iron out the crinkles...
This is also sound advice on scrotum care.
Every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends.
Shed Petition[ ^]
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ChrisElston wrote: Maximilien wrote: Also, don't try to iron out the crinkles...
This is also sound advice on scrotum care.
Ouch. 
Bob Dole The internet is a great way to get on the net.
 2.0.82.7292 SP6a
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If you have a half decent phone camera, try this....
CamScanner[^]
Works well.
I are n00b.
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SinghUlarity... wrote: Works well.
Uhm, it won't work on any non-Android phone.
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You deserve it if you're using a non-android phone 
I are n00b.
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Well I've used iPhones and now a Windows Phone, and I rarely install apps. So even if I had an Android phone, I'd not install this. I only use the browser and email apps irrespective of the phone I use!
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I don't know much about IE on Windows phone but Safari on the iPhone is terrible, when I was on iOS I avoided it at any cost. Any particular reason for avoiding apps or you're just too lazy to be arsed into installing any? 
I are n00b.
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Part of it is being lazy, the other bit is I am not very tech-savvy when it comes to using gadgets (mostly due to lack of interest). Kinda ironic I guess given that I spend most of my time writing code, including on mobile devices.
That said, I did get a Nexus 7 for my son and helped him install several games. So I am familiar with Google's app store.
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You can use a white-balance correction tool during post-processing to get the yellow color whitened up 
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What could I use for post procesing, that has nice white balance correction?
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