No subject

>From j-klock at evanston.lib.il.us  Wed Feb 10 07:52:31 1999
Received: from ELLINGTON.EVANSTON.LIB.IL.US (ellington.evanston.lib.il.us [207.227.130.64])
	by sunsite.Berkeley.EDU (8.9.0.Beta5/8.9.0.Beta5) with SMTP id HAA27366
	for <web4lib at webjunction.org>; Wed, 10 Feb 1999 07:52:30 -0800 (PST)
Received: from islington by ELLINGTON.EVANSTON.LIB.IL.US with SMTP;
          Wed, 10 Feb 1999 9:51:56 -0600
Message-Id: <3.0.32.19990210095315.009b0ae0 at ellington.evanston.lib.il.us>
X-Sender: klock at ellington.evanston.lib.il.us
X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0 (32)
Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 09:53:16 -0600
To: web4lib at webjunction.org
From: James Klock <j-klock at evanston.lib.il.us>
Subject: [WEB4LIB] Re: Scanning negatives and transparencies
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

>Anyone have any recommendations on how-to methods for scanning negatives
or >transparencies IF YOU ONLY HAVE A LOW-COST FLATBED SCANNER? Meaning I
don't >have a top-dollar drum scanner or one of the flatbeds with
lightsource box >atop the scanning surface.

You probably should start by seeing if your low-cost flatbed scanner has an
optional low-cost transparancy adapter.  Many of them do, and they're under
$200.  Given what you'd need to spend to build your own, and the amount of
time it'll take, and the lack of certainty that you'll end up with anything
usable, this may be worthwhile.

That said, my experience with a flatbed scanner with a transparancy adapter
(it was an HP ScanJet 5 series, with the optional adapter) suggest that
these things are basically flourescent lights behind a flat white diffuser
panel (to help even out the amount of light).  The HP one only lit up
during scanning, so you might want to have a switch on the side that you
can flick on when the scanning is about to start.  This shouldn't be too
difficult to build, but it will probably cost a bit in parts by the time
you're done.  I'd suggest packing in as many low-wattage flourescent tubes
as you can, to further assist in keeping the light evenly distributed...

James