HOW TO...

Use a portable scanner to scan on the go

by Nik Rawlinson

What you need: Handheld scanner

Time required: 60 minutes

There are some things that certain scanners just can’t do. An A4 flatbed can’t capture anything wider than 210mm, for example. Neither can any flatbed scanner capture chunky objects. A network- or USB-connected scanner is useless when disconnected from your Wi-Fi or your PC.

Scanning apps on phones overcome some of these problems. They’re portable, so you can use them wherever you need them. You can also hold them further from the subject to capture larger objects. And, because they don’t have to remain in contact with the subject, you can use them to ‘scan’ a page from a chunky encyclopedia just as easily as a single-sided document.

But it’s unlikely a scanner app would be able to match the resolution of a traditional scanner. The Canon Pixma MG2551S Colour 3-in-1 Inkjet Printer, for example, costs just £29 (www.snipca.com/57619), yet its built-in scanner can capture images at an impressive 600x1200ppi (pixels per inch).

That means if you scan a sheet of A4 (8.26x11.69in) at its maximum resolution, you should end up with a 4956x14031-pixel image (69 megapixels). Few mobile phones match that because it’s simply not required for day-to-day photography.

So what are your options if you want to scan something too large for a conventional scanner, or too far from home, but within a controlled environment and at high resolution? The answer is to turn the problem on its head – literally. Rather than putting what you need to scan on the scanner, put the scanner on the subject itself. To do this, we bought a portable handheld scanner. There are several to choose from – many with very similar specifications – but we wanted a high-resolution device that could save directly to internal memory or a removable memory card. It also had to be small, light and easy to use in unfamiliar surroundings. That’s because as well as using it to capture oversized documents at home we wanted to take it out around town to capture textures that we found on old posters, walls, gravestones, cut-down tree stumps and so on, then use them in artwork.