Plane Scanners

[Annibale G.]

Hi, I'm a black and white photographer. I need to digitalized my photos to send them in a digital way either e-mail or via web.
I thought to buy a scanner, a plane scanner; I've seen a lot of them by Epson. I need a good quality one. The only problem I have is that all the scanners I've seen scan the A4 format which should be approximately a 21X29cm meanwhile my print are 24X30. What can I do? Do you have any suggestions?
Annibale

[stunsworth]

Hi Annibale, I assume you're are scanning prints. Is that correct? If so you'll need an A3 scanner rather than the normal A4. If you Google 'A3 scanner' you should see what you're looking for.

An alternative of course is to scan the original negatives.

[Annibale G.]

well , I need to scan prints right. I've already have a negative scanner. But the work you have to do with is too much.
Annibale

[luigi bertolotti]

A3 Scanners are (obviously) big and generally costly (except the Musteks, fwiw the only rather cheap that are easily available in Italy): personally, having I a standard A4 flatbed, 4 o 5 times I scanned 24x30 pics making two A4 scans and then using photo stiching Software to rebuild the pic... not difficult, and you enjoy the resolution of the scanner, that for a good A4 is usually higher than on a cheap A3...of course, this has sense only if you already have the scanner and the stiching Software.

[christer]

I am a black and white photographer too. I agree that it is almost pointless to try to scan b+w negatives.

Almost all my prints are 24x30 and I scan them on a standard A4 flatbed scanner. In practice this is possible because most A4 scanners have a scanning area that is slightly larger than A4; the width is usually US letter size plus a little bit for good measure.

My prints have a 2 cm white border on each side, but even with a much thinner border you will be able to scan the whole picture (not paper!) area.

A low cost scanner will do and will give excellent results if you scan from 24x30 paper. In practical terms, if you scan at high resolution, the files will be much too large for sending via email or publishing on the web.

I have a Canon scanner which I bought new for 99 Deutschmarks which says something about its age. It works very well but is a bit noisy. You cant go wrong with a 50 Euro investment. Try it!

[Annibale G.]

I'll see . I thought about a epson ones.

[earleygallery]

Why is it pointless to try and scan B&W negs?

[rob_x2004]

I smell formic acid

[Annibale G.]

I don't wanna scan negs because after that it takes many post-production work with photoshop . I take a lot of photographs, I make the print to a professional lab . I need just to convert image digitally.

[robsteve]

If the prints are large, you could use a copy stand and a digital camera.

[zapp]

Actually there is software out there available that will stitch two scans taken with a small scanner to a single image at reasonable cost, but stitching takes time and yadiyadiya. Get an A3 scanner, work with a copy stand or scan the originals (slides/negatives).