Capture your art

Getting your work ready for print-on-demand doesn't have to be complex. Learn how to easily create digital files from your artwork.

Art Scanning | Digital Printing | Capture Services

What does it take to begin creating and selling on Imagekind? Well for starters, the single most important requirement is that users will need to have digital image files of their artistic works. If you are a photographer shooting digital, you're already done. For everyone else, this is for you. That means photographers still shooting film and traditional artists who want to get captures of their works.

Truly great prints must first start with a great scan.
In order to get started, artists and photographers will need to have high resolution digital images created from their artistic works. It is extremely important to get the highest quality and resolution scan one can afford, that will meet all your future printing (output) needs.

And in case you're contemplating it, scanning your originals on that flatbed you have sitting on your desk is definitely not what we mean! Although flatbed scanners have come a long way in the past few years, it's worth the small investment to have your work professionally captured to facilitate the highest quality prints.

Getting started with digital prints

You may find yourself asking "What is the best way to digitize my art?". In truth, this question is not an easy one to quickly answer and frankly the opinions vary among digital imaging professionals. Furthermore, it's easy to see that the needs of a professional photographer shooting medium format film will be very different from artists whose works may include large, potentially framed canvases. However, we've created a short guide below for each user, which contains a few of the more widely accepted "best-practice" methods you should use to archive your artistic works.

Photographers

Drum Scanning

Typically wet mounted scans of film, transparencies, negatives, and prints. Size capacity for originals is particular to the drum scanner used and will vary by studio, but usually max out at 8x10" though some range up to 11 x 24". You can generally expect resolutions up to 11,000 dpi. Pricing will also vary by studio depending on matters such as quantity or size of the orders, but rates normally range between $.50 and $1 per Mb.

Want more information on drum scanning? Click here to view a sample Google search result.

Other High Quality Scanning

Imacon makes "virtual drum scanning" equipment and the widely acclaimed Flextight Scanners tend to offer very high resolution scans and can rival traditional drum scans in tonal gradations, color gamut and enlargement capability. Basic information about these products can be found in many places including here. A web search will reveal many firms that offer this type of scanning service.

Artists

Most artists will be faced with two primary approaches to capturing their original work.
The first is the large format professional scanner. The second is high quality digital camera backs.

Large Format Scanners

Flatbed scanners generally cannot resolve the same level of resolution or as high a DMAX (an indicator of how much detail can be captured in dark areas) as traditional drum scanners, but nonetheless are capable of producing excellent results when the requirements are within the scanners capabilities. One very notable exception is the Cruse Family of scanners which can scan originals up to 59"x88", with a depth of up to 4", at resolutions exceeding 10,000 dpi. These scanners offer unparalleled capabilities and are used by prestigious fine art galleries around the world. Resolutions can be over over 10,000 dpi. Our list below of digital capture providers includes vendors utilizing the Cruse scanner.

Digital Camera Backs

Scans from digital camera backs, generally used by high end professional photographers and studios, are capable of producing very high resolution images from original art. This is a preferred method when the original piece is too large or cannot be easily moved. The printing output of a fine art piece from one of these high end cameras can be astounding. Whatever camera gear is used, the final quality depends on many other factors such as experience, set-up, alignment and color correction after taking the actual shot.

Digital Capture Providers:

This table is a sample of vendors that have a range of the above services and equipment.

If your company provides these services and would like us to list you as a resource, please contact us. We will try our best to keep this reference up to date and useful.