[biochip]

I would like to get my sketches/drawing (TONS!!) watercolors, ect paintings, years worth of stuff onto cd�s and have it look really nice so I can see the detail. The thought of scanning them all seems insane. Is there another way? Is there a good enough camera? (digital?) That can do this? Its what I can think of that might allow me to do this in hopefully a lot less time. So I at least have a copy of everything I have made on cd-r�s? somewhere.

[Ian Jones]

Scannings the best way. photographing is very difficult to get right. You will get odd lighting from the camera flash, especially on shiny paints. If you have the money you can get a professional bureau to scan them for you.

[biochip]

I should have known, thank you for answering my question. I have tried with a digital camera and hoped that maybe there was another camera out there that would do a better job.

[SWMatt]

Personally, I find the quickest and easiest way to do this is using a digital camera. Get a large flat area with ambient lighting (no shadows) and set up a tripod with your camera attached.

Sort your work into sizes and photograph them in batches as you'll need to adjust the focusing (even with digital camera) as some work will be small enough that you can use the short range focus mode which will give much better output if the smaller works are detailed.

It's essential that there is no directional light, so you may need a couple of additional lights to ensure that no deep shadows arise.

Hope that is of some help, hey it works for me!

Good luck!
_________________
_____
Hmm, signature... right!