Scanning Your Work

One of the most important things that you can do from here on out in your career as an artist is properly document your work.  Sometimes works may get lost or stolen, or even sold, and you will want to have a professional running catalogue of all the works you create.   While you might not ever show any of the works you have created in Color Theory or other Design Foundations courses to the general public,  it is good to have documentation for personal reference and reflection.  The processes by which you will be documenting these works will also apply to your future endeavors as an artist.  Thus, this is great practice for when you start making more serious works that you will want to share with the public. 

Scanning Your Work

To scan your work for color foundations, you will want to

1. Place your work picture side down on one of the many scanners available to you at MCA.  

2 Place the work in alignment with the edges of the glass scanning window. 

3. From the applications folder on the MAC locate "Image Capture" and open the program:

When you open the application, if you get a window that looks like this:

Or you might get a window that looks like this:

If the window that opened was the first one, you will need to click on the "SHOW DETAILS" button and the second window (pictured) will open up and and Image Capture will automatically run an overview scan. 

Once you are on the second window pictured above.  We will want to check, and possibly change the settings so you will get a print quality image of your work. 

To the right of Scan Mode:  the drop down tab should read "Flatbed." If it does, then you are good.  Go on to the next step.  If it reads "Transparency-negative" or "transparency-positive" then you will want to click on the drop down and change it to "Flatbed." 

Next, your "Kind:" tab should read "Color." If it reads "black and white" or "Text" then you will want to change the setting to "Color" 

The next tab, "Colors" should read "Millions" if it doesn't, then click on it and change the setting. 

For Resolution, you should have "300" dpi selected.  If you are not on this setting, then you will want to change the setting before proceeding. 

Just below "Resolution" click on the "Use Custom Size" to let "image Capture" know that you will be using one of their settings. 

Next you will want to highlight the area that you would like to have scanned.  To do this take your mouse up to the top left of the picture plane in the center of the application window and click and drag to cover the entire picture plane.  When you do this, Image capture will create a border and include the dimensions in the "SIZE" windows just below "use custom size." 

The next three settings tells Image Capture where you want to place the file, what you would like it named and what type of format you would like the scan to be.  

I like to select "Scan to: DESKTOP" so I can see the file as it is finished, and I can move on to the next work I need to scan.  

In the NAME window,  Enter your last name.  All images that "Image Capture" scans will be placed on the desktop with your last name as the base and a number (depending on how many times you have scanned).  For example, your first scan will be titled "Yourlastname" then "yourlastname1" "yourlastname2" and so on. 

Once your settings are all set, go ahead and click "Scan" in the lower right of the "image Capture" window.   Sometimes you will get a "Scanner is warming up" message in the scanning window.   Do not be alarmed

once the scanner is warmed up, the scan will begin and you will see the message change to this: 

This will take a approximately 20 seconds for the scan to completely run.  WAIT until you see the image on your desktop before removing your work from the scanner.  Once the images is finished and on your desktop, you can continue to scan the rest of your work without having to adjust any of the settings.