Beginner's - ArtTrader Magazine

Art TRADER
m a g a z i n e
All scanners come with software to use; this is always the best way to scan your work unless you are
familiar with scanning through editing programs such as Adobe Photoshop.
Ensure that your scanning bed is clean. It is amazing how many little pieces of fluff, dust, glue, paint,
etc., can adhere to the scanning bed. A good way to clean it is by using a microfiber cloth and a cleaner
for eyeglasses. Don’t spray the cleaner directly on the bed, but onto the microfiber cloth.
Next look at your scanner’s settings. A good standard resolution is around 300-400dpi. Make sure
that you have set it to this higher resolution in the settings. Secondly, ensure that your scanner is set
for the correct document type. Some of the newer scanners have an 'auto detect' function which prescans
your work and sets the scanner to the corresponding document type. Common document types
include black and white, newspaper, text, photo, and so forth. If your scanner requires you to manually
set the type, make sure you scan all your colored work with a color photo setting, for colored and black
and white photo for black and white images only. Shaded black and white images scan better on a
colored photo setting.
Scan your artwork and save it 'as is' to a file on your computer. This will become your 'record' of your
art, a raw un-cropped high-resolution copy.
The next steps occur in your photo editing software. Editing your image this way gives you the best
control of how your image appears on the web. Following certain steps each time will ensure that
nothing gets missed.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Open your image in your editing software. And use the software to rotate the image into a straight
position.
Once the image is straight, crop the image to as close to the edge of the art as possible. Even going
slightly inside your design is ok.
Once it is cropped, zoom into the image and look to see if the scanner has picked up any bits of stuff
from the scanner bed. If it has, use the 'spot healing brush' to remove those marks.
At this point, I recommend saving it as another high-resolution copy of your work. Rename the file
when you do this.
5. Finally most of the editing software has a 'save for web' option. When you use this reducing your
work to around 40% is a good idea and saving it as 'high' or 'medium' resolution. This final save of
your work is the image you use on the web.
Scanning, cropping and editing
your image ensures that you are shown
to the world at your best
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