Scanning highly reflective "metallic" surface.

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Moahunter

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#281079 28-Jan-2021 13:26

I'm trying to scan some printed material that has black text on a metallic silver background. I'm using an Epson XP-100 which will not run the Epson Scan 2 program.

I would like to remove the background because it completely obscures the text, the whole image ends up black.

Any suggestions?

TLD

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#2644481 30-Jan-2021 21:27

Does it have to be scanned rather than photographed? (i.e. is there a lot of it?)

Do you have Photoshop CC?

I'm thinking using a DSLR with a long focal length lens to minimise the field of view that will be reflected in the metallic background.

Shoot from slightly off axis (as close to axis as you can get without the camera being reflected).

Arrange a large white reflector such that it will cover the area reflected by the metallic background, and light that reflector. I would use foamboard as I have it. Controlling the exposure for best effect — you'll need to use manual exposure as the reflective background is going to cause under exposure in the auto modes.

This will give you an out of square image, but if you have Photoshop you can use the Perspective Crop tool to correct that. If you don't have Photoshop, I am sure someone will do it for you if there are not a thousand pages to be done.

Trevor Dennis
Rapaura (near Blenheim)

Gordy7

gordy7
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#2644485 30-Jan-2021 21:46

How about using a camera? (same as above :-)

Make the metallic background reflect to a white sheet of paper or bed sheet.

Effectively you would then be photographing black text on a white background.

Gordy

My first ever AM radio network connection was with a 1MHz AM crystal(OA91) radio receiver.

timmmay

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#2644628 31-Jan-2021 07:33

There's a good book that I have or used to have "light science and magic" that goes through a lot of this kind of thing. Not sure if I have it still, check out your local library.