Start With a Scan: A Guide to Transforming Scanned Images and Objects into High-Quality Art - Softcover

Beginning by explaining how scanners work, the different types of scanners that are out there, and why it's important to know how the scanned image will be used, the book quickly digs into the meat and potatoes of editing, altering, tracing, and otherwise changing a scanned image to suit a project.

Arguably the most interesting chapters are "Creating Textures and Backgrounds from Print and Paper" and "Transforming Photos into Graphics." One of the most difficult and time-consuming tasks that a designer faces is finding and creating background elements and graphics. In these two chapters, which probably are worth the cover price alone, Scan explains how to use scanned photos or raw elements (cloth, paper, and so on) to create the element that you need.

Although the book deals with digital tools (e.g., scanners and computers), it hardly could be called a computer graphics book. The goal is teaching how to scan and alter images, and Scan never loses sight of that. The authors deserve a great deal of credit for creating what is an educational and inspirational book on a form of visual art that happens to use computers as tools, instead of a computer book that happens to talk about digital graphics. This is how books of the genre should be written. --Mike Caputo

Start with a Scan, Second Edition shows designers, illustrators, and hobbyists how to transform raw scanned images into high-quality, finished illustrations. The book starts off by covering the basic techniques of scanning and then moves on to provide a wealth of valuable scanning tips used by the experts. The bulk of the book uses four-color illustrations and step-by-step instructions to show you how to take a scan of almost anything -- a lackluster photo, clip art, an ordinary household object -- and turn it into beautiful artwork using graphics manipulation programs such as Photoshop, FreeHand, and Illustrator. This new edition includes additional chapters on using scanned images for Web design and creating your own arts and crafts projects. The discussion throughout is geared for users of both Macintosh and Windows platforms. If you do a lot of scanning, this book can help you squeeze more out of your work and get more attractive results.