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Scanning Tips

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SCANNING TIPS

Most of this information is copied from the en@ils articles written for
NAILS Magazine over the past few years

Jan 99:
Becky had just done an interesting airbrush design on her client and thought, "what if I just placed her hand in the scanner?" Well it worked. She was so excited that she just had to tell everyone on the mailing list. Two nights later, Jo sent me the results of her own experiment, outstanding clarity!! (and cool pumpkin faces too!). I could not stop thinking about trying this and luckily for me, my favorite client was coming the following morning and she was my only client and we would have plenty of time to play. After doing 4 different Halloween designs, we stepped into my computer office and scanned her freshly painted nails into my computer! The results were also outstanding. Immediately I placed all the scans, and 2 scans of my own nails in a web page and within 30 minutes of finishing KC's nails they were online! 

Just one hour after placing these scans at the BeautyTech site, at least 2 list members whined laughingly about having to rearrange their stations to accommodate a scanner!

See the scans for yourself: http://beautytech.com/nailtech/gallery16.htm

Nov 2000
Click, Snap, Scan
A very frequently asked question in the various networking forums at BeautyTech is how to use a scanner to get your nailart work in digital format for web use. Becky started this trend about one year ago when she ran out of film and had this brilliant idea. Since then everyone is doing it! The concept is simple; place the hand or nail tip face down on the scanner bed and scan. But reality is a little more complex. It is very helpful to have a helper here to push the buttons and click the mouse, unless of course you are a contortionist! Some props are also needed to accomplish this deed. Fabric of some type, medium to darker colors, solids work best, mild prints also work well. After placing the hand on the scanner bed, drape the fabric over the hand, tucking it close to, but not under the edges of the hand and fingers. Experiment with various colors and patterns of fabrics (any clothing article, towels, etc) until you produce your desired effect. The basic reason you need to use a "cover" of some sort is to block exterior light from around the scanned object, so the scanner will see the colors you want without being subject to excessive angled lights. If you are scanning directly from a human hand, the fingers and nail tips should be hovering just a tiny bit off the scanner bed glass, the rest of the hand and arm can rest on the glass, so make sure your victim has steady hands! Any movement while the scanner is doing its thing will result in a blurry shot. Using a fabric cover also allows you to leave the scanner cover open, which is more comfortable for your model. Always clean your scanner glass with a very soft cloth that has been sprayed with glass cleaner before the final scan.

Touching the scanner glass will leave body oils and blur your shot. Never spray glass cleaners directly on the scanner glass. Since scanning is like a huge zoom lens, you will be amazed at what you see. You may not be able to see that hangnail with the naked eye, but you’ll see it and dry cuticles, messy polish jobs etc., when scanning. A light application of cuticle oil should be applied before the scan. If you are scanning directly from tips, use double sided tape or a small ball of silly putty to hold the nails in place while you scan. You can either close the cover of the scanner when using tips or again, use your fabric to cover them for a different effect. 

Scanner settings are very important here. Even though all pictures viewed on the web are seen at 72 DPI (dots per inch) I always scan at 300 DPI for greater clarity. This result is a rather large image, so if your scanner has a reduction setting choose between 30% - 50%. After the scan is done, use your image editing software to crop, resize, add borders, generally clean it up for what ever presentation it was intended for. 

Check out some examples done especially for this article at:
http://www.beautytech.com/nailtech/gallery30.htm  with some additional explanation of what you see and how the scans were done. You will find links to other scanned nails here also. 

• Make test scans with different settings, best scans are done at 300 DPI (dots per inch), 100% size, saved as JPEG files.

• Try to keep the nails and skin OFF the glass, experiment with the subject actually holding the cover of the scanner rather than laying her hand ON the scanner glass.

• Also experiment with using different cloths, dark and light colors, draped over the hand to hold the scanners light in and give a better reflection and better scans.

Questions, Comments: contest@beautytech.com

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