A3 + Scanners?

[Uli]

After about one year of working in A4, I have done an A3 sketch today. What a relief! I have trained myself to work in A4 for technical reasons, but its difficult for me (I need special glasses). Plus I'm just better in larger formats.

What's your experience with size? Did anyone buy an A3 scanner? Can you recommand it, or do you have other ideas about doing illustration in larger sizes and getting it inside the computer somehow? Is making a photo really an option?

[Fraz]

It depends completely on so much things, including:
Have you got a good digital camera, and is it easy for you to take photos outside?
Do you need amazing quality?
Photos are fine for most things.

[DSillustration]

The only decent A3 scanner out there that doesn't cost a fortune is the 'Mustek A3'.
It's not amazing, and it's discontinued, but you can get it for $80 if you can find it.
I know a ton of comic guys that use it.
I've never used it for color really, just black and white.

All your other options for scanning are over $1000.
Or, like Fraz mentioned, you can photograph it.

[dbclemons]

Brother makes a tabloid size scanner also, MFC-6490CW, that's <$300. I haven't used it myself, but was considering it. I've owned another Mustek scanner in the past that was crap, so I'm not interested in that brand. There are a couple others I've seen that start about $1200 or so, most are about double that for A3 scanners.

A work around I've used in the past is to take the top cover off and scan in sections, and then paste the pieces together. Small work on paper or canvas (flexible) can be scanned on a A4 size in only a few pieces without too much trouble. The trick is to scan as consistently square as possible so they match up easily. I think the largest I've scanned that way is about 16 x 20. You should be able to get by without taking the cover completely off as I did, which was for doing extra large pieces.

Scanners tend to do a better job in my opinion than cameras in terms of resolution and color accuracy (not always) unless your camera is a high end DSLR at least 10-12MP or so for 300dpi, and if you've got a good studio setup. These days DSLRs at that resolution are going for <$800, like the Canon Rebel XSi, so that might be worth checking out.

[Uli]

Thanks everybody for the technical data. The brother scanner sounds interesting...
I'll check out everything.

I'm still worried about what happens when I do an illustration for a customer in A3. Will there be a way to digitalize that properly?

I'm begining to think about about asking a friend who is a professional photographer and has a studio :-/
I mean it can't be that difficult- all illustration in the past was done in larger scale... *grumbles*

[tensai]

I mostly work A3 or larger (up to F8 or roughly 37 x 45 cm). What I do is scan twice or more, and stitch it together in photoshop. This sounds elaborate but the quality is often lot better than what I have got photographed previously.

Here is the good part: If you have photoshop CS3 or CS4 the stitching is almost always totally automatic. There is a function called photomerge used to make panoramic photos and it stitches the separate scans faultless unless it's the thinnest of thinnest line work. A3 drawings I scan in two parts, sometimes three. I scan F8 sized drawings in six parts if I used the whole page.

So if you're doing this for high quality reproduction I would look into a good quality scanner over size considerations. I'd love to have a good A3+ sized scanner capable of getting you good colour transitions and natural detail that wouldn't cost me a half a years rent. If you find one or hear from one I would love to check it out. I always thought I got decent enough scans but since I bought a higher quality Epson scanner a while back I saw a huge leap in quality. So I'm more than happy to stitch.

Check or play around with Photoshop/file/automate/photomerge, then add open files or browse to a folder with your new scans (I set lay-out to reposition only but play around and see what works)... This became better in CS3 and 4, but older versions might work fine for you.

Have fun.

[Uli]

That sounds very very good :-)