If you’re unfamiliar with scratchboard, you can’t touch it. Oil from your hands stays on scratchboard. Everything you do shows up. So when scanning this kind of artwork, we have to be careful not to touch it. We scan the art with gloves on, and we don’t breath when we scan.
The next challenge for this kind of art scan is the detail. Our Betterlight scanback camera will capture all of the detail, but sometimes we need to move the camera closer to the artwork, so we’re scanning at close to 600 PPI. Usually we scan artwork at 300 ppi. That’s usually more than enough resolution when scanning artwork. But in this case the detail in the artwork is so fine that we have to capture super minute details, like a magnifying glass. We need the kind of resolution in our scan that will show us the detail on a postage stamp, or a dollar bill, or scratchboard.
This is just another example of the many challenges we face in scanning artwork. Art scanning is, well, an art. Each kind of artwork presents its own challenge, and everyone in the studio must understand how to handle different kinds of art for art scanning. When handling artwork, it’s important to know the differences between scratchboard, and watercolor, and oil paintings, and charcoal, chalk pastel, encaustic paintings, aging paintings, older artwork on paper that is deteriorating etc. But in this case, when scanning this particular piece, it’s important to know that it’s scratchboard.
The end result is that when we review the scan, we can see every tiny scratch up close, as if we are looking at the artwork through a magnifying glass. And after we’re finished editing in Photoshop, the giclee prints look incredible. If only we could print on scratchboard!
You can see more of Danielle’s scratchboard art at: https://www.daniellemcdowellart.com/
