Print this pageHow to scan artwork
The question of how to transform a dull scan of a painting or sketch into a vibrant image that looks the original is one I get asked often. My scanner is nothing special (a Canon CanoScan LiDE 60) so you don't need an expensive scanner to get these results, just some post-production in Photoshop and attention to detail. On average, post-production of a scan to get it to look just like the original takes me about 5 minutes.
In this tutorial I'll show you my scanning and post-production method using my Golden Unicorn painting as an example. If you would like to save this tutorial to your computer you can download the image version here (1.14 Mb)
To do this yourself you will need:
- Photoshop (intermediate experience)
- A color scanner
- A color artwork to scan
Preparing the artwork for scanning
The very first thing I do is make sure my artwork is as flat as possible before it goes on the scanner - this is critical because if you scan paper that's buckled, light will get under it and create ugly shadows and blurry patches in the scan. To flatten a pencil drawing or watercolor painting I put it under a clean hand-towel (make sure the towel doesn't have any designs painted on it), and go over the back of the artwork with a warm iron. If it's an acrylic painting I put it in a plastic sleeve and leave it under a heavy pile of books for a week.
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Step One - Scanning the Artwork I always scan my artworks at at least 300 dpi, higher if I plan to make prints that are larger than the original artwork. I usually turn all of the scanners 'improvement' settings like auto tone and fading correction off as I get a much more accurate final result if I do the post-production myself. If my paper is still a bit bent I put a large book on top of the closed scanner lid once I've laid my artwork on the glass as this helps to minimise the shadows and blurry bits I'll have to work out later. I always do a quick scan preview just to make sure the painting isn't crooked, and then I go ahead with the final scan. As you can see here the painting has scanned fairly dull and it's not very sharp, but we can easily fix that in Photoshop, the important thing is there's no shadows or blurry sections. |
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Step Two - Adjusting Levels Once I have the scan in Photoshop I begin adjusting the levels to reduce the washed out effect (particularly awful when scanning watercolors). I put the original artwork next to my monitor so I can continually check my onscreen version against it, and then adjust the RGB level settings until the light and dark are closer to those of the original painting. This is usually only a minor adjustment and I always use non-destructive editing techniques so I can easily change the levels later if I need to.
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Step Three - Sharpening The next step is to sharpen the image and get back those nice crisp lines. To do this I use a high pass filter as it's more accurate than an unsharp mask, especially for large images. To apply a high pass filter follow these menu steps in order:
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Step Four - Correcting Color Next I need to correct any color alterations caused by the scanner. I like to use Selective Color for this as it gives me a lot of control over individual colors. To load the Selective Color tool select the layer with the scanned image on it, and then from the file menu choose Image / Adjustments / Selective Color... You'll see a toolbox appear with a drop-down menu for individual colors, and 4 sliders. Correcting color is mostly just a matter of experimenting, play with the sliders for each color until your scan matches the original artwork, there's usually a few colors you won't even need to adjust. Tip - To easily test which areas of the scan will be effected when you choose a new color just pull the 'Black' slider all the way to one end.
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Step Five - Saving and Watermarking My final step is to save the polished image. If it's for printing or storing I save it in a lossless format like PNG or TIFF. If it's for web-use I resize the image to 800 pixels on the longest side and use Photoshop's "Save for Web" function (File / Save for Web...) to get it down to 100 kb if possible, although I try not to go below a quality of 60 or the image begins to look blurry. If I'm going to display the image online I also take a minute to add a watermark and logo to identify the artwork as mine and help protect it against image theft. The watermark should be visible enough to make getting rid of it a pain in the neck for would-be image thieves, but not so glaringly obvious that it draws attention away from the artwork. For my watermark I just use some white text set to a very low opacity. My branding logo serves as a second watermark, as well as a way for people to find my website if they see my artwork somewhere else or save it to their computer. |
