Content-Transfer-Encoding: |
7bit |
Sender: |
|
Subject: |
|
From: |
|
Date: |
Tue, 26 Oct 1999 18:40:45 -0600 |
Content-Type: |
text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" |
MIME-Version: |
1.0 |
Reply-To: |
|
Parts/Attachments: |
|
|
Nancy,
I have had really good luck in scanning shells and will gladly pass on what
I have learned and what I was taught by Bill Frank of Jacksonville.
First, I hope you have a good scanner. I found the Visioneer to be great
for scanning shells. I use the 300 dpi setting for most of my work, unless
the shell is really small, then I kick it up to 600 dpi and set an initial
frame really pretty tight on the shell so I can blow it up and still have a
good image. If you leave the cover off you will pretty much get a black
background. It will have some flaws and light areas, unless you scan in the
evening with the lights out. Who watches that much TV anyway.
Recently I scanned a lot of nerites and many were black -- kind of negating
the use of a black background. In this case I uses a piece of blue
construction paper. One piece cut and taped to form a circle about one inch
high, then another to set on top of the circle (with the shell inside). The
trouble with this is you end up with a shadow. This looks okay unless you
combine two images (dorsal and ventral) and then the shadow may not quite
fit properly. What I did was put in an entirely new background with
Paintshop Pro (a great program). There are many other programs that will
perform similarly but I really like this one. There is no easy way to do
this as the automatic fill functions almost always cut into the image. I
basically go around the image with a pen tool and put in the new color, then
block out the large areas.
I have scans I can send you that show some of this and would be happy to
answer any questions.
Tom
|
|
|