Ross,

I agree that, although scanners were designed for flat stuff,
they are excellent for photography, cheap (!) photography. I have
a $100Can Acer scanner (which I got for $70 with a rebate offer)
with which I've gotten some astounding scans. My favorites so far
are of a 2" Cancer magister (crab) that the scan has blown up to
nearly 3' at 600K. The detail is astounding; every bump and bristle
in the face and mouthparts is visible. Of course, flat things are
better, like the 1" sanddollar I scanned into a 3' image...WOW!
I doubt I could produce an image like that with a $70 camera.
I'm becoming a scanner junkie!

Peter Egerton,
Vancouver, BC
(if you want to see the above scans, I'll send them to you)



At 08:40 AM 6/26/00 +0000, you wrote:
>Bod Doyle Wrote;
>
>>Olivier has covered some of the info needed when
>>creating images for the web, but a flatbed scanner
>>is really only designed for... well, flat stuff.
>
>This is true - they were DESIGNED for "flat stuff" - BUT, with a good
>quality scanner like UMAX, a rather remarkable depth of field is
>possible.  I've had excellent results with a good variety of shells -
>like the Cymbiolacca perplicata (Hedley, 1902) on the
>http://manandmollusc.net/ home page.  The main drawback with a scanner
>is that often the colors in the resulting image are lighter  (or for
>very dark shells, darker) than in the shell -so if you are trying to
>show a DARK orange shell, for example, often it will only show as medium
orange.
>
>Swimming weather up here now, at last!!,
>-Ross.
>
>
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Peter Egerton, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Collector of worldwide Mollusca,
lifetime student of zoology and computers.
Step into my website:
http://www.intergate.bc.ca/personal/seashell/index.html
        -Links to add, remove, alter?  Just ask!
        -This is an on-going project.
        -Suggestions always welcome :-)
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