by: Monica Poppy
The tools you will need to have a fantastic scan are glass cleaner, lint free cloth, soft brush, 90 degree angles triangle. You should have all of this thing in your house right now. A lot people don't take the time and the care that is necessary to scan an image. You should have this thing next to your scanner. You need to prepare an image to be scanned if you won't a Fantastic.
The first thing is the glass cleaner all brand names will be ok to use. Cleaning the photo and slide scanner glass the scanner glass needs to be clean only in the begging of your scan. To use the glass cleaner you should spray the soft cloth and not the scanner glass.
Some manufacturer recommend glass cleaner that doesn't have ammonia and Microtel in it they recommend using alcohol on the flatbed scanner glass. Just make shire that the scanner glass is clean and has no streak on it. To check if you have streak lift the lid when the scanner light is on and look to see if there is steak.
When cleaning the glass don't scratch the glass. Paper towels have a coarse texture that will scratch the scanner glass. Please use a soft cloth or a lint free cloth to wipe it.
The next step is cleaning the photo this is very impotent to do. Using a soft brush you can buy a photo brush or you can use a makeup blush that work very good too only use new one not old one. Brush off any dust off your photo with your soft brush. This will help you when you make larger photo. They will look cleaner, and you will not have speck of dust on it.You should always handle your photo image and negatives by their edges so you keep them clean.
Cleaning the slide scanner and the photo may seem like wasting time to do, but the dust that is there will be on your scan image. The computer can remove the dust on your photo image, but it will take you longer to do it on the computer then to clean the scanner glass and photo.
When scanning your image you should put the photo image in the middle of the glass. I am not saying that you can't put the photo at the edge but you will get a better scan if it is in the middle.
When you put the image on the photo scanner align the image if you take the time to do this you will not have to do it later on the computer it will save you time and you will have a better scan.
To place a photo in the middle sound hard it not, by using a right angle (90 degree angles) triangle it is not. Place your photo on the scanner then put the right angle triangle on it to center it.
Anytime you use software to rotate you image the computer must recreate every pixel in the image, you will loss detail in your scan when you do that. That is why you should take your time when you are scanning your images. This will work for all different types of scanner.
