I don't usually write about "computering" or "websiting" or the intricacies of html programming. Nor is this meant as an exercise in hornblowing, but I pulled off a little trick today that others might find helpful at best and at the very least interesting. For some time I've been disappointed at how poorly artwork for websites scans from photos, so some time ago I tried scanning an actual drawing. My scanner (8 1/2"x11" flatbed) was not large enough to encompass the entire work so I made three separate scans and joined them into a single jpg using my photo utility of choice, PhotoStudio by ArcSoft. The results were more satisfactory than scanning the photo. The drawing was a portrait of a cheerleader now posted at my portrait website.

Today, I took that a step further by attempting the same procedure (though considerably more complex) with my newest painting. The painting wasn't small by any means (16"x30"). I had to create six different scanned sections to be merged in the same manner as I did the drawing mentioned above. It wasn't easy, but it worked. I had a few problems with alignment and gaps between scans (I'll be more careful next time), but on the whole the posted results are at least as good as a scanned photo and without the intermediate step (not to mention time and cost) of photographing the work.

The painting was scanned in six sections at 50dpi. Then I made a blank 150dpi. scan to serve as a "canvas" upon which to mount the six separate scans of the painting. That part was all fairly easy (I know, easy for you to say). Anyway, the tricky part is copying and pasting all the rectangular parts together perfectly (or nearly so). When that's done, the completed work is saved to a new file. I had to downsize it to 33% of the original scan, which really hurts the quality, but is necessary to see the entire painting on one screen. Well, in any case, the results can be seen in the "transportation" portion of my website. The painting, by the way, is entitled "Chevy Beach."