Scanning 12x12?

[LegacyLeaver]

Hi everybodeeeeee! I need to be able to scan & digitize my old 12x12 paper LO's. I'd prefer not to use an outside service, as I have lots of LO's to do, and hubby/kids still prefer to do paper scrapping, which means I'll have more to do in the future.

It's time for a new scanner anyway, so I checked out Best Buy. They only do all-in-ones now, which is not good enough quality for what I need (I do digital design work of my own & need scanner for some of this). Checked out wide-format scanners online. They're usually either lower resolution or start at around $2,000. Yikes! So, does anyone know if there are any scanners out there that you can perform a "stitch" on, scanning larger formats in pieces and then putting together? The largest I've been able to find is legal size scanners, which still aren't big enough.... HELP!!!!

[elenasworld]

i have not found a 12x12 scanner.
mine does legal size and it is okay for most of my projects.
any of the larger stuff, I make the two scans and they "stitch" them
together as best I can in Photoshop. my stuff has been school projects,
so nothing that needed to be matched perfectly.

i would like to know too

for my dh's stuff at work, they go to a local print shoppe to scan their
large drawings. i am still trying to figure out if places like Staples would
have large scanners

[donakat]

Usually for large format scanning you need to go to a prepress shop--they prepare copy and graphics for printing of all kinds. There aren't all that many left, nor are there the lithographic services there used to be which would do camera work. But you should be able to check the yellow pages for a shop like this. Also check any photographic labs that do complete color & black&white work. They're not going to be cheap, though, so you might want to figure out your amortized costs to decide if it wouldn't be cheaper in the long run to buy that $2000 scanner. Incidentally, my first scanner cost $1200 back in the early 90s, and didn't do 25% of the job you can do nowadays.

Another suggestion is shooting by camera. With a camera stand, a digital camera with a good focal range for this sort of shoot, and the right kind of light setup, you could manage.

Like Liz said, Photoshop will stitch together separate scans. Be sure to overlap your scans by plenty to give it the information it needs to stitch two scans together. That way a legal size scanner will do the job.

[redhotdesigns]

What you need is photo stitching software. There's Microsoft I.C.E. and many others. Basically you scan each side of the layout creating two images then stitch them together using the software. That's how I do mine. I use ArcSoft Scan-n-Stitch Deluxe but it came free with Epson paper a long time ago.

[landofoz]

I found this at might be of some usehttp://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/c...bateScrapPromo

[goldscraps]

I think your best bet is to either scan each half and stitch them together or to take a picture of them. Taking a picture would be easier and should yield good results if you have a good camera and a tripod. It's worth a try. :)