Scanning without shadow

...do you mean, a shadow because the piece you are scanning isn't quite flat on the scan bed?

Andrew

..or do you mean 'show through' because the scanned pieces have print on both sides?

Andrew

The first one. There's a shadow because it's not completely flat.

...i would try something heavy on top, like a heavy book on top of white paper perhaps, big enough to cover the scan bed...

Andrew

I tried but didn't work wel.. Let's see if I find something that covers the bed. I have many images but worth saving my job later...

Hi

Why don't you just remove the shadow once you have opened the image in Photoshop?

Click with the eyedropper tool in the background area that you want to match, and then use the rectangle select tool to select the area outside the image on the sides with the shadow. Next switch the selected color to the background color and hit the delete key.

It takes less time to do then to explain.

Mike

Hi Mike,
I tried scanning using heavy items but it didn't work perfectly with all images. Your idea sounds really easy (why not saying logical) but I am doing something wrong during the process. Maybe I would have to do it more than once since the shadow shows in multiple colors of black which is OK. Do you know any online tutorial that could explain it so I can check what I am doing incorrectly?
Thanks again!

...i think mike might be trying to get across essentially a crop of the image, so that the shadows are cropped off the sides perhaps?

...are these shadow areas essential to fix or can they just be cropped using the crop tool?

Andrew

They need to be fixed because the images couldn't be placed on the scanner all in landscape or portrait. If I could use all at the same layout I wouldn't mind that much but I can't have some images with the shadow on the right and some on the top. Some of them have the border color close to the background color I want to remove and this is basically my huge problem. There's no proof to this printout so I am trying to ensure no dust wil appear at the final print. Some images are very old documents and there's an idea of trying to keep as much as possible closer to the original (I have two or three that are very old documents). I tried cropping but I missed some of the identity and also shape (they are not all the same and straight lined).

Just scan the thing. You can crop it in photoshop. Get it as flat as you can. I sometimes lean on the lid of the scanner, but a book or whatever is fine. As long as it's flat it's good to go. You can then just crop to taste. You don't need to do anything else. Once you've cropped you can increase the canvas size.

my favorite scanner weight is the good old phone book.

And for some perspective-
if you think that's a pain, I do embroidery setup, and often the art supplied is an embroidered hat- try getting THAT flat!

-E

(DISCLAIMER: Self-taught AI user; unorthodox methods w/good results)
'There is no LEASH LAW for the IMAGINATION!'
myspace.com/erixworx

Yikes! I would never "LEAN" on a scanner. That's a good way to break the glass, cause physical contact with the scan head, or otherwise cause damage to the scanner. I would use no more than moderate pressure on the top of the scanner.

Once in Photoshop, it should be a simple matter to select the shadow area and clone it out of existence. Zoom in so that the shadow area can be seen well. Try the Magic Wand, but remember to adjust its sensitivity so that it does not select areas of the image that you do not want selected. You can select multiple areas by using the Magic Wand in the "+" mode. Another good tool for working with edges is the polygon tool. Select short segments and it will do a good job of following the edge of a document or item. BTW, all of the selection tools can operate in "+", "-", and NEW modes. New means start the selection over again from scratch.

Hi again

What I didn't ask was do you need to have the background show?

If you are just interested in the object you can crop off the excess in Photoshop.

If you do want the object to have a background around it without the shadow then...

Make sure the object is squared up. Drag a guide line and use “Rotate canvas” “Arbitrary” if necessary.

Select the area outside the object using the rectangle selection too. If you only need to do two sides, drag from the outside in to your object on one side. Then do the same on the second side holding the shift key to ad it two your previous selection.

You now have an "L" shaped selection outside your object.

Use the Eyedropper tool to select the color in the background. Make sure this color is selected as the background color in the color selector indicator.

Hit delete.

The shadow will be removed and the matching color will be inserted.

Hope this helps

Mike

Might be cheating but maybe just take a digital picture of the piece? there would be a little setup involved to get the lighting right but high megapixel digital cameras are pretty cheap now. You could probably even borrow one.

Or I am completely misunderstanding the problem. That happens often. ;-)