First off when I first started scanning I was the suck. So if you're not great now don't think that has to be that way forever.
1. Scanner / PC
You can use pretty much any scanner on the market but I personally use a Canoscan 5000f. (this is the current equivalent
here.)
You can drop like $60 and get a good scanner now, as opposed to a few years ago where you could get a scanner if you got sold off your least favorite kidney.
To make your life easier I'm going to suggest getting a scanner w/ USB 2.0 and if you don't have USB 2 on your PC you can get a card for cheap. It cuts scanning time in half. Also it's REALLY labor intensive on your PC.
I have an older one, a 2.8 w/ 512 of ram and I'd really like to at least move up to 1024 of Ram.
Also getting a good monitor is nice you don't need like an LCD but it'll help you keep from not editing out grainy crap.
(When I got a Sony Trinitron I suddenly saw all my scans had lots more texture than I thought. In a bad way.)
2. Photo Editor
I personally use Photoshop (which version really doesn't make a big difference, though to be honest the new smart sharpen in PS CS2 is the bomb) but you can accomplish basically the same in PSP.
Also whatever scanning program comes w/ your scanner is fine.
3. Paper Quality / Image Size
Objectivally you're going to want to try to scan an image no smaller than 1/2 a page.
You can do smaller but you're really not gonna like the results.
Obviously a full page is the best case.
Also paper quality makes a huge difference.
EW is pretty bad
and Interview practically still has leaves attached to the paper.
Flaunt is the best
and most of the rest of the magazine universe falls somewhere in the middle.
If you look at your page in good light you will be able to see if there's going to be bleed through.
Putting a black piece of paper behind the page will get rid of most of that.
Some people recommend using an exacto knife to cut the page out but i just break the holy hell out of the spine of the magazine and smash it flat with books.
4. The Actual Scanning Part
Don't kid yourself. You need to scan at 600dpi. Some scanners go higher, good for them, but 600 is it.
Going less will save you time and will also give you weird patterns in your scans. So knuckle under and do the 600. If you've got USB 2 like I recommend it's really not bad.
Once I get the scan of the ginormous raw image of about 5000 px and up I run a median at a strength of 2 over it (Filter -> Noise).
(In PSP it's called Average and it's under Adjust -> Blur.)
At this point if there are things you need to edit I resize it to double whatever I want my final image size to be. (E.g. if I want it at 1500px I'll resize it to 3000px. I'll get back to that in a second.)
Assuming that you have no editing to monkey with resize it to the final image size.
4A. Editing
There's really no good way to learn how to edit crap out of images.
I just want to beat the damn editors of magazines that type all over a perfectly good image.
Start small and you'll get used to it and can move on to bigger and more complicated stuff.
The clone tool is good and I've had some occasional luck with the patch tool (only in PS).
Two page scans are an abomination and I only do them when I really, really, really like the subject. And then they still look like crap if I'm the one doing it.
5. Color Fix
Usually the scanned product is darker and has less contrast that you're going to want. First off in Photoshop I hit Shift Ctrl L. Generally this will automagically fix a lot of the color issues.
If not you can just skip to the next part or if you kinda like it Shift Ctrl F will let you fade it by percentage.
If you're using PSP you'll skip straight to curves. In PS it's CTRL M.
In PSP it's Adjust -> Brightness and Contrast -> Curves. Both work the same.
To brighten the image you pull up on the straight diagonal line and curve it. The higher up the brighter the image. I suggest having the preview function on to eliminate guess work.
To increase the contrast drag the lower left part of the line to the right.
You can also monkey with actual brightness and contrast and gamma but years of doing has made my personal preference curves.
6. Smoothing the Image
I live and breathe Grain Surgery.It is a magically wonderful tool that fills your life with amazement and happiness. I suggest trying to find an "unlimited trial" (Wink wink, nudge nudge.) because it's like $200. Run that puppy and life is good.
At that point you're probably going to want to fade it a bit because usually it makes the image look like a ball of blur. Using the Shift Ctrl F feature in PS get it to just a little bit more blurry than you're going to want your final image.
If you're using PSP it's a bit more complicated.
You need to create a duplicate layer and apply the filter to the top layer.
Then lower the opacity to get to the aforemention slightly blurrier state.
At this point if you have Smart Sharpen (again it's in CS2) you squeal with joy because it's almost as good as grain surgery. Set the radius to 1.0 the type to Lens Blur and check the more accuracy box. Usually you want to be in the 30 to 70% range but using the preview function will get you there with ease.
If you're using an older version of PS use regular sharpen and then use the Shift Ctrl F function to get it just right. If you're using PSP use Adjust -> Sharpness -> Unsharpen Mask. Set the radius to 2.0 the clipping to 1 and the percentage to how the preview looks.
7. Misc Stuff
I usually save at 15 progressive but that's personal choice. I don't recommending going any lower though b/c it starts getting lossy after that.
Also I use PS to scan but PSP to do the final save / look over b/c the PS save for web thingy is a pain.
I also recommend saving as you work just in case your PC crashes, reboots, whatevers.
If you have a trouble area within your image using a dropper tool to get a common color from that area then use a paint brush with the opacity set at about 15. Then go over the grainy area and it'll smooth it out but still leave the real texture of the image for the most part.
Your scanner will get dirty. Especially if you have cats. Even if you leave the lid on. The best thing I've ever found was a cloth that I clean my glasses with. It works amazingly well and they're not expensive.
Finally scanning takes a really. Long. Time. I usually spend about 5 hours on average to scan about 40 images. But someone with a faster PC will probably cut down on that time.
