Scanning Canvas

[KLS Images]

Can someone give me some tips/ideas for getting good results when scanning artist's canvas? When I scan them now I get a lot of the actual canvas texture and while I certainly expect to see some of that, I'd like to know if there are ways to reduce this texture in the scan - so I am not printing the original texture (or as little as possible) on new canvas (if this makes any sense)

Thanks,

[President_LSI]

Scanning artistic paintings

In order not to get too much of the texture of artistic paintings there are two things you could do:

1. Switch off or substantially reduce Unsharp Masking (USM)

2. Defocus slightly if you have manual focus function

[whitney357]

I totally agree with you
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[iancc]

I've previously posted a tip on scanning textured paper with a view to removing the appearance of grain. this should work with canvas as well. To recap - scan the image once leaving a bit of a margin around the outside, then turn the original around 180 degrees on the glass and scan again with exactly the same settings - you want two identical scans differing only in their orientation. After scanning rotate one image to match the others orientation.
You now want to get them into two layers in Photoshop or similar program. If using Photoshop the photomerge command is very useful as it can align the two layers up for you. You may end up with the two layers but with layer masks applied - delete the masks without applying them.
Select the top layer and change its opacity to 50 percent - if the images are aligned correctly - most of the grain will disappear. You can check the effect and the alignment by toggling the top layers visibility on and off. If you are happy, just flatten the layers and continue with further processing.
A couple of possible limitations - It may not work as well with glossily varnished canvases the highlights will be too bright to be eliminated. Also canvases, especially unmounted ones may be too flexible to get 2 'identical' scans so they may not fit together accurately.
Anyway - give it a try and see what you think.