Editor Reviews:

Product Description:
Follows a step-by-step approach to transforming raw scanned images into great illustrations, discussing the technical basics of scanning, how to scan almost anything, and how to implement scans into popular commercial programs. (All Users).

Amazon.com Review:
The art of mixed media has taken on new meaning in the digital production environment, and the second edition of Start with a Scan guides new artists through the maze of image acquisition, hardware, and software toward the goal of final output. This is not just a book on scanning and creating art, but about the art and science of scanning, editing, and tailoring an image to your needs, too.

Beginning by explaining how scanners work, the different types of scanners that are out there, and why it's important to know how the scanned image will be used, the book quickly digs into the meat and potatoes of editing, altering, tracing, and otherwise changing a scanned image to suit a project.

Arguably the most interesting chapters are "Creating Textures and Backgrounds from Print and Paper" and "Transforming Photos into Graphics." One of the most difficult and time-consuming tasks that a designer faces is finding and creating background elements and graphics. In these two chapters, which probably are worth the cover price alone, Scan explains how to use scanned photos or raw elements (cloth, paper, and so on) to create the element that you need.

Although the book deals with digital tools (e.g., scanners and computers), it hardly could be called a computer graphics book. The goal is teaching how to scan and alter images, and Scan never loses sight of that. The authors deserve a great deal of credit for creating what is an educational and inspirational book on a form of visual art that happens to use computers as tools, instead of a computer book that happens to talk about digital graphics. This is how books of the genre should be written. --Mike Caputo

Rating : - Amazing Book, a guide to the both the technical and artistic
I bought this book solely for reference on scanning line art and fonts, but have found that it has much, much more to offer. I disagree with a prior reviewer that this book is only for beginners and that much of the information is out there on the web. I have been searching, without success, for specific directions on scanning line art and fonts and converting those scans into usable art. (Just two chapters in this book.) This book not only gives one specific instructions for this, but goes much further and delves quite deeply into the actual creation of real art from a simple scan. The book also provides a lot of information on turning photos into graphic art. I had considered myself a fairly advanced user of photo software, but this book has opened my eyes to an amazing range of techniques and ideas on image usage.

I was expecting a technical guide to basic scanning techniques, and this book provides that. It also takes one much further beyond mere technical skill and is a wonderful guide to both the creation and use of computer generated graphics.