It's getting down into the 30s at night here now, and the last of my rose's are starting to fade. I thought I might try to save one of my favorites by scanning it. This is something I've rarely tried before, and came across many difficulties.

How do you keep the darn thing up off the glass, yet still enough to scan? The scanner itself introduced a lot of jiggling.

The exposure was horrible, even on my (relatively) highend scanner. All 3 channel histograms were totally on the left 50%. I guess, short of turning on the scanner's auto, which is essentially the same as adjusting it later, this is simply par for the course?

The severe adjustment I had to apply after the scan highlighted the myriad flaws in my scanner glass, that aren't even visible to the naked eye when looking at the glass. Again, par for the course?

would this do it? : http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/130688-post4.html

Doug, all things considered, your rose looks pretty good, very nice! I have noticed that just the type of lamp/lens in one scanner to the next can give very different results. I have tried suspending the object to be scanned from thin wire (like the type used for hanging pictures or craft and florist's wire) strung over the scanner and anchored to nearby objects like stacked up books, table legs etc. This works quite well and the fine wire is easy to edit out if it shows up in the scan. I have an couple of old scanners kicking around so I am even considering removing the glass completely from one to see what I can get from that.

Removing the glass seems like a great idea (if you can rig a cover to keep out dust). So does a black box, except I don't currently have space for something like that (deskspace is a limiting factor for me in several areas).

I wonder if different flatbeds have differing depth-of-field, or if there's a setting that determines that?

I tried googling for some sort of gooseneck clamp arrangement, but got no useful results.

I wonder if different flatbeds have differing depth-of-field, or if there's a setting that determines that? you know, i dont know. never thought about it. take it outside and take a picture of a tree with it and see. might be a bit hard to focus, though ;)

I tried googling for some sort of gooseneck clamp arrangement

A cardboard box will do it. Cut a hole in the top to clamp the rose stalks

Try ViewScan
http://www.hamrick.com/

It has a focus adjustment.

Ken.

It regards to depth of field I was curious so I did a couple of scans of a sprig of parsley on the two flatbed scanners I have connected at the moment. the first attatched image is from an elderly HP psc2310 multifunction, the second is from a Canon lide500f. I used same scan settings for both but had to adjust the levels in the canon offering because colour cast really offended my sense of aesthetics but the HP scan is as-is off the glass. Interestingly, the Canon does a far superior job when it comes to scanning photographic prints etc... very shallow depth of field but much sharper focus.