LARGE FORMAT SCANNING

STEP 1: LOAD YOUR DRAWING

The following instructions outline some basic steps to achieving a high quality scan from the large format scanner located in the 3410 Computer Lab. There are many settings and combinations that may be worth experimenting with if you are scanning multiple and various drawing types. The following steps are the recommended settings for scanning pencil drafted drawings. The system may reboot itself between scans, please be patient while it restarts and inform the lab assistant if the device is in a persistant error state.

Location of dead scanner light. Try to orient/locate your drawing clear of this spot. The scanner leaves a black line across your work in this location.

Load your drawing with the drawn side facing you. Try and avoid the location noted above, just right of the center on the scanner head. If it cannot be avoided, you may need to scan your drawing twice, once on each side of the line, and stitch the two unaffected halves of each scan back together in Photoshop.

STEP 2: HOME SCREEN

STEP 3: SCAN MENU

STEP 4: FILE DESTINATION & RES

From the Home Screen select “Scan” and press the selection button (circled in red). Note, this is not a touch screen, scroll with the wheel (boxed in green) to navigate between screen options.

From the Scan menu scroll down to “Vector Graphics to PDF”, press the selection button. This option works best for drafted pencil drawings. Depending on what your are scanning you may want to try the other options as well and compare. Note: the title says “to PDF” but in the following steps you will change the file type to JPEG.

After selecting the vector graphic option from step 3 a second options menu will open. Make sure the file destination is set to USB and insert your USB in the port to the left of the screen. Confirm there is sufficient room on your device and that it is formated for windows (hasn’t been used on a Mac) and is not corrupt. Any of these USB issues will cause the scan to fail and the system to restart.

Double check that the resolution is set to 300 dpi.

STEP 5: SCAN SETTINGS

STEP 6: SCAN, SAVE & RELEASE

From the same menu entered in step 4, scroll down to “File Type” and select. This will take you to three additional settings: “Color”, “File Type”, and “Quality”.

- Set “Color” to grayscale (unless you need color, if you have large areas of poche, you may want to compare a grayscale and color scan for best representation.)

- Set “File Type” to “JPEG”

-Set “JPEG Quality” to “Maximum”

Once you have all settings entered/confirmed press the Start button (circled in red) to begin the scan. This may take a couple minutes. Once complete, it will ask you if you want to release the original drawing, press Yes (boxed in green) the drawing will drop from the scanner. Catch it.

Open your file on a computer and check the quality and file size, should be around 3 to 6 MB.

See the following pages for scan examples. Remember you can post edit in Photoshop to remove any shadows/textures/yellowing etc.

SETTING >

RECOMMENDED SETTING >

Line from broken scanner light mentioned in Step 1.

Drawing positioned on scanner to avoid line.

SETTING >

SETTING > (Very, very large file)

(yellow can be removed easily in Photoshop)