Pan and scan, baby

October 2, 2007 @ 3:29PM

Pan and scan, baby

By Haje Jan Kamps

If your digital camera has just packed it in, or you just feel like shaking things up a little bit, why not consider alternative photography? After all, using a camera isn’t the only way to get stuff into your computer for processing… Instead of scanning your prints, why not skip the camera altogether and scan the objects you’re photographing?

It ain’t nothin’ new – at the dawn of the internet, there was a site where people put their kittens on a scanner, and saw what came out – normally, little blurry bunches of fur that were confused by the sound and moving light – but good fun nonetheless.

Of course, you can go beyond the nefarious business of scanning your pets – Use your imagination, and you can use your scanner to scan 3D objects: Cigars, apples, bugs – all you need is a bit of imagination.

Using a scanner for capturing your images has many advantages:

1. You will get a great exposure of the object

2. You can do macro photography using your scanner

3. You can scan anything you can place on the scanner

A couple of tips:

1. Clean your scanner properly first, because if you don’t, you’ll find yourself spending hours in Photoshop cleaning it all off.

2. You can remove the top lid of your scanner and turn the lights off to get a black background.

3. You can use any kind of material above the object you want to scan to get a different background. Want blue? Try a sheet of paper or a t-shirt!

4. Macro photos? No problem! Scan in high resolution, and crop in on what you want to cover.

6. Most scanners will allow you to scan in very high resolution

7. Scan scan scan and experiment with any kind of objects.

Give it a shot – dust off the ‘ole flatbed scanner, you’ll never see it in the same way again! Happy scanning!

Have you tried it? Post a link to your Flickr gallery in the comments!

(This article is based on ‘Scan your Imagination‘ by Raymundo Panduro. All photos © Raymundo.)

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Comments

Anonymous

4 years ago

A few more tips on scanner photography here:
http://www.photogalaxy.com/articles/scanner.php

Anonymous

4 years ago

I once made a graphic art work using only a scanner and Photoshop. I scanned a little screwdriver I have and created multiple copies of it in layers with blurring for DOF. I even created a wood texture background from scratch rather than using a pattern but that is where I made my mistake. I left the background sharp while the objects above it blur more as they descend towards the wooden surface. Sadly I lost the original PSD file so I couldn’t fix it, but it was a fun exercise anyway. Here’s a link to it;

http://www.flickr.com/photos/strandloper/129679891/

Anonymous

4 years ago

Also make sure you have the screening turned off because you won’t be scanning anything with dots – this will help keep it nice and sharp. Don’t try and scan anything with sharp edges either as you could scratch the glass flatbed.

Anonymous

4 years ago

Hi! I stumbled upon your blog while I was doing research for work and I’d like to say that yours is one of the most helpful and informative photography blogs I’ve ever read. I’m no photographer but I’ve been playing with film cameras for a month now. I’ve been reading up on composition and technique though, because if I’m doing this for fun I might as well do it right. Anyways, keep up the good work. I’ll be back! :D

Anonymous

4 years ago

Interesting idea. I’ve never thought of just scanning smaller items instead of trying to shoot it with my digital camera. Thanks for the tip and I’ll now have to try it.

Anonymous

4 years ago

If you’re worried about scratches or dirt from your subject (or sap from things like leaves), you can put a sheet of clear acetate transparency film over the scanner bed first. And since you can slide around the transparency film it can also be convenient for fine tuning the positioning.

Anonymous

4 years ago

This is something I discovered for myself a couple of years ago. I love the process and am continuing to find new ways to scan and make art with my scanner.

Anonymous

4 years ago

I love the articles you have posted to date! I ended up here by following a link to the article on smoke photography. I experimented with my scanner a little while ago, while my camera was broken and I was using a substitute I wasn’t crazy about. I love the narrow focus and texture that results from using the scanner. Here are a few examples from my flickr account: http://flickr.com/photos/eccentrophile/tags/scanned/.

Anonymous

4 years ago

hi!
I made some flower scanning, and you can see them here:
http://www.carlachi.com/scanner/set_en.htm

It’s a very amazing technique!

Anonymous

3 years ago

I’m surprised you don’t say anything about experiments with time distortion and scanners! That’s always been my favourite photographic use of scanners, and I miss being able to do it with my current scanner (a Mustek Bearpaw) which gives crazy chromatic distortions if you try to scan anything with any depth.

There’s an in-depth piece about ‘slit-scanning’ here: http://www.flong.com/texts/lists/slit_scan/