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.