Looking for a scanning technique

**Ron Coleman** · 7-Mar-2007, 20:23

I have an Epson 4990 scanner and I'm trying to figure out how to scan a very old photo. The image is an old panoramic of my dad's high school class from 1932. Just imagine 500 students standing on risers and all facing straight forward and all in straight lines. It took me a while to figure out they were actually standing on curved risers and the camera or lens was moving. The tip off was there were more people in rows further from the camera. From what Iv'e been able to find on the web it was most likely done with a Cirkut camera. The print measures 10 x 48 inches and standing it on edge in a smooth curve reveals the real view from the camera's lens.

What I'm looking for is a scanning technique that would limit or eliminate the bending of the paper needed to press the face against the glass. This photo is old and very brittle and I'm afraid of causing some damage. The print had been stored in a 2 inch diameter roll for years.

One idea I had was to add an extra sheet of glass to the scanner and then the picture would lay flat and I could just support it on each side. The problem with this would be if the scanner won't focus with the image raised about an eighth of an inch.

The other idea was to keep the lid raised and just lay a soft pad of foam on the photo and avoid any sharp bends.

I hope to be able to stitch all the images back into one large picture after scanning.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Ron

**Greg Lockrey** · 7-Mar-2007, 21:15

Bring it to me and I will "scan" it for you with my digital camera set up fot that very purpose.

But depending on how curved the piece is, you should be able to make scans of the sections and stitch them together in PS. The trick is to have a "reference" edge that will be the guide for rest of the scans. I would index the piece about 4-6" at a time. You could then go through each scan and edit out the out of focus areas to get a copulation of focused pieces. (This is harder to describe than do.)

**Brian Vuillemenot** · 7-Mar-2007, 23:39

I recently scanned an old class photo for a friend that measured about 10X45 inches on my 4990. I simply put the photo on the scanner glass so that the long axis was perpendicular to the long axis of the scanner. That way, the excess photo not being scanned could hang out of both sides of the scanner. Then, I scanned it portion by portion, starting on the left edge of the photo, then moving the photo to the left to scan each additonal section. I rolled the portion not being scanned up since it had come that way, but you could keep yours straight if you're concerned that the photo might break. Be careful to leave a bit of overlap between the right edge of one portion and the left edge of the next portion to facilitate stitching. There are a bunch of stitching programs available, so any of them should work fine. If I remember correctly, I had to scan six separate portions, then stitch them together. Attached is a small version of the final panoramic. Good luck!

**Ron Coleman** · 8-Mar-2007, 07:06

Thanks for the replies. Maybe tihs is easier than I think. I'll keep you posted how it works. I've stitched a few smaller images using Photoshop Elements with good results.

Ron

**Greg Lockrey** · 8-Mar-2007, 07:19

If you have Photoshop CS or above, it's almost a no-brainer. The main trick is to determine your "engineering" edge and work from there. How much of a curve your paper will present some issues, but I think you'll work through it ok.