A lot of people have asked me how I scan photographs, slides and negatives and what my 'trade' secrets are. Well there aren't any secrets, however in order to save my fingers from typing the same replies time and time again I've written a short piece on the how, why and what I do.

The Black Art of Scanning is a fully illustrated guide to producing better quality scanned images. It's been produced with the novice in mind, yet contains information to suit the not so novice scanner user as well. As with any guide it should be noted that results will vary from user to user depending on their experience and the amount of time and effort they are prepared to place in practicing what is shown in the guide.

As well as the above topics there are sections on hardware requirements, overscan and how to deal with it amongst others. I've tried to make the guide concise in its contents as well as easy to understand and follow and best of all it is FREE for anyone to download, print and use. The current incarnation of the file is only available as an Adobe Acrobat PDF so you will require either the Adobe Acrobat browser plugin or the full Acrobat Reader to read and print the file. If you don't have the reader you can get it by following this link Download Adobe Acrobat Please note you need to download the FULL reader as the file won't display in the text only version of Acrobat.

The file is approx 1.8mb in size and will take a few minutes to download depending on your modem speed.

Before you can download the file you have to fill in the short form below.

The information collected is for my use ONLY and will never be redistributed, sold or passed on to any business or individual. The information is being used so that I can improve the contents of the file. All details you supply will be kept in complete confidence.

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Regards, Ian Wallis Perth, Australia