What went wrong when scanning an oil painting

Scanning originals – a potential double disaster

In a perfect world artists would give The Frame House absolutely flat, unbuckled images, with matching measurements on opposite sides for Fine Art printing.

In reality, very few images are ‘square’ and most of them, especially stretched canvases and water colours, are buckled and have irregular sides.

When we scan images they have to be absolutely flat to the glass of the scanner so the light reflects back in the same way all over the image. Works larger than the scanner have to be scanned in areas which mean they are moved over the glass several times.

Stretched canvas tends to be pressed closer to the glass over the stretching bars, so we have to put something on the back of the areas between these to hold the looser canvas against the glass; next the whole image is covered with cloths to stop light getting in round the edges; finally a further relatively heavy, rigid cover is used to compensate for any buckling.

This is why it is so important that artists allow sufficient time for their media to dry, (longer than you think) and that ‘smudgy’ media such as charcoal, pastels, pencils etc are treated to protect the surface. We take great care of the originals left for scanning and print-proofing but realistically they have to be able to withstand handling and storage in our folders.

Recently we scanned in several oils for a novice artist, and to our horror found after completing the scan that the last image had recently been retouched.  The paint had a ‘skin’ so felt dry to the touch, but when we scanned the image it left smears on the glass of our (expensive) scanner and consequently all over the irreplaceable original painting.  A potential double disaster!  Fortunately one of our specialist staff was able to remove the unwanted paint, but we added a ‘term of condition’ to our order forms to try to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

Work Submitted for Fine Art Printing and Framing

Work submitted to The Frame House will be handled and stored with care, but it is the responsibility of the client to ensure that the media used are totally dry and in the case of friable media such as pastels, charcoal  and pencil, treated to resist smudging and smearing during the scanning or framing processes.

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