Three Amateur Problems - Scanning a Mirror

I scan infrequently, and the Umax 1200s and 2000 (yechh) are usually kept in
the closet. I'm pretty decent with the usual document or snapshot scan, but
some "edge cases" always stump me.

Here's the first, and perhaps easiest. Is there any releable way to
flatbed-scan black text or line-art on silver/gold mirror stock? I just get
black. I usually give up and take a snapshot with a digital camera, building
a little "silverware tent" out of tissue paper and manually fiddling the
angles until I can see something. Of course, depth of field means something
is always out of focus. Hints?

A better solution than your tent may be to put a polarizing filter on the camera, and
polarizing filters (@ 90 deg) on the light sources. This is old hat in copy photos.
Play with the angle of the polarizers.

Edmund Scientific has some relatively cheap polarizing film for the lights.


"Frank Haber" <frhaber@N0SPMrcn.com> wrote in message news:mdydnctfyOM55rLbnZ2dnUVZ_riknZ2d@rcn.net...
>I scan infrequently, and the Umax 1200s and 2000 (yechh) are usually kept in the closet. I'm pretty decent with the usual document
>or snapshot scan, but some "edge cases" always stump me.
>
> Here's the first, and perhaps easiest. Is there any releable way to flatbed-scan black text or line-art on silver/gold mirror
> stock? I just get black. I usually give up and take a snapshot with a digital camera, building a little "silverware tent" out of
> tissue paper and manually fiddling the angles until I can see something. Of course, depth of field means something is always out
> of focus. Hints?