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Arlene
08-17-2005, 12:39 PM
I know i've been asked several times as to how to combine two scans together when the drawing won't fit on the scanner bed.

to combine two drawings what I do is the following.
1. first i scan usually at 300 dpi and make sure the drawing is as straight on the scanner bed as possible.
2. I then open them up in PS.
3. Third I find that the part that went off the scanner bed usually has a grayer shadow on it. So what I do is crop that off till all that's showing is the actual colors. I do that with both but still leaving enough to overlap one on top of another.
4. Next I will make sure my rulers are turned on. Then if they are, if you take the pointer tool from where the ruler is and slide your pointer down, you'll see a blue line which you can place anywhere on your drawing. I do that for both the horizontal and the vertical and line it up on the edges of the drawing to double check that it's straight
5. If it's not straight, I'll use the marquee tool to make a box around the whole scan, and then go into edit>transform>rotate and rotate the picture till it lines up with the blue line. If need be, I do it with both scans.
6. Now I open a new document making sure the dpi is the same as the original scans (in my case 300 dpi) and creating a document that is at least 2-4" wider and longer then what the combined scan's will be.
7. I then take my pointer and place a blue line near the far edge vertically and near the top horizontally (figuring I'm going to add the top part first)
8. I then click on scan one in the layers palette and drag it to the new document, lining up the top and right edge
9. I then do the same with the bottom half, but also lining up so the pieces match. sometimes to help me do that, i'll go over to my layers palette and put the opacity temporarily to 50% or less so i can see where they need to match up exactly.
to double check that everything is lined up, i'll also zoom in on the area where they're supposed to match up.
10. Once i'm satisfied they are lined up perfectly, i'll click on layer>flatten image. If i need to adjust colors etc, I'll do that after by making a duplicate layer.

Arlene
08-17-2005, 12:41 PM
Oh and once I'm done adjusting colors, I'll save that version as a tiff, and then create a new one at 72 dpi and no larger then 600 pixels in either direction so I can post it here on ST.

Rose
08-17-2005, 12:58 PM
This is awesome advice Arlene... wow, you're smart, pretty, talented, a full time mom, wow! How do you do it all? And now, a ps scan and graphics specialist... I'll have to take classes to catch up.

This is really so valuable! :-)

Brenda
08-17-2005, 01:45 PM
Terrific thread, Arlene! I use Photoshop alot but never thought about checking with the rulers. Good advice.

Arlene
08-17-2005, 11:24 PM
my last scan of the wineglasses was done this way. :D

Denise
08-19-2005, 09:19 PM
I finally had time to REALLY read all the instructions...thank you for taking the time to explain all this. 2 questions...you'll probably laugh again;) .....how do you set the dpi for the initial scan? Is doing the merge this way better/more accurate than using the photomerge option?

Arlene
08-19-2005, 11:24 PM
to set your dpi it depends on your scanner. read your instructions and look at the software that came with it.

and yes this is more accurate then photomerge.

Denise
08-20-2005, 12:22 PM
thanks! :D