Animation Scanning Tips
Here are a few ideas on how to use a flatbed scanner for producing animation on your computer:
• The scanner can be simple & inexpensive.
Since your scans are from line drawings, the resolution of an 8-bit greyscale 300 dpi scanner is more than enough. Scan your images at 300 dpi.
• Tape a pegbar to the scanner's glass surface. This ensures that all your drawings will be registered correctly in relation to one another. It is very hard, almost impossible, to re-position images later.
• Set your scanning resolution correctly. This is important. NEVER scan images at a lower resolution than what will be used in the final production. If you do, the result will be jaggy. I usually set the scanning resolution to about 1.5 times the final resolution. If you set the resolution much higher, you just waste memory and hard disk space.
• The final dimensions of your animation should be at 720 x 480, so that means the dimensions of your scanned image should be slightly larger than that (1.5 times that) and set at 300dpi.
• Set contrast and brightness already in the scanner software. This ensures a good, sharp line, and also lessens your work in your editing software.
• SAVE your scanner settings! You may have to re-scan an image later. If you save the settings from each scene, re-scanning is a piece of cake!
• Use suitable software (Photoshop, FinalCut, Flash, After Effects, etc.) to make a QuickTime movie (.mov file) of your files.