Digitizing Prints

[neuroanatomist]

When our oldest daughter started school, we faced the dilema of 'art projects' brought home to the tune of several per week. Do you keep all of them and put them in boxes in the basement...or do you throw them out, after your child worked hard on them? Several per week times 36 weeks per year times 3 kids...that's a lot of storage space!

My solution is to take pictures, then recycle the projects. I save up a few months' worth, then set up a makeshift copy stand in the basement for a day and take the pictures. An actual copy stand would mean using a wide angle lens, and likely introducing distortion. Instead, I put the camera with a 70-200mm lens on a tripod, pointing downward. At 70mm, I can loosely frame an 11x17 piece of construction paper, and zooming in allows me to frame small projects tightly. Rather than try to get it pointed straight down, I have a piece of heavy cardboard propped at an incline, with white felt on it (the felt keeps the paper from sliding). Lighting is from a pair of 600EX-RTs in 24" Lastolite Ezyboxes, one on each side at a 45° angle to the surface. I get nice, flat lighting (and for those 3D projects, I can ratio the lighting to give the image some depth).

[HDNitehawk]

When our oldest daughter started school, we faced the dilema of 'art projects' brought home to the tune of several per week. Do you keep all of them and put them in boxes in the basement...or do you throw them out, after your child worked hard on them? Several per week times 36 weeks per year times 3 kids...that's a lot of storage space!

My solution is to take pictures, then recycle the projects. I save up a few months' worth, then set up a makeshift copy stand in the basement for a day and take the pictures. An actual copy stand would mean using a wide angle lens, and likely introducing distortion. Instead, I put the camera with a 70-200mm lens on a tripod, pointing downward. At 70mm, I can loosely frame an 11x17 piece of construction paper, and zooming in allows me to frame small projects tightly. Rather than try to get it pointed straight down, I have a piece of heavy cardboard propped at an incline, with white felt on it (the felt keeps the paper from sliding). Lighting is from a pair of 600EX-RTs in 24" Lastolite Ezyboxes, one on each side at a 45° angle to the surface. I get nice, flat lighting (and for those 3D projects, I can ratio the lighting to give the image some depth).

Sorry John but you are wrong on this one. I suggest finding the storage space for the boxes. It should only take one box per school year.
It is wrong to digitize the kids work and deprive future generations of the enjoyment of the original.
Just think if the world had the Kindergarten crayon art of Vincent VanGogh to enjoy now.