Professional Art Scanning & Digitizing Artwork For Giclée Reproduction

Non-contact Scanning – Variable Resolution – Colour Accuracy – Any Artwork Size and Thickness

ABC Fine ART is one of the premier companies in British Columbia, Canada for scanning and digitizing artwork. Run by passionate people with both technical and artistic backgrounds in digital imaging, we understand your artistic needs for quality and accuracy in art reproduction. Our professional scanning services deliver a sharp, detailed image, which are formatted into a high-quality, digital copy of your original artwork. This is Ideal for limited-edition art reproduction and on-demand printing, which additionally, we would be happy to offer you in store with our top of the line printing services.

NON-CONTACT Artwork Scanning Services +PLUS colour correction and adjustments

Our professional scanning services are optimal for digitizing your fine paintings and artwork. With 16 bit colour for more detail, richness and smoother gradient, and ProPhoto RGB or Adobe RGB profiles for the widest tonal gamut range, we provide the highest resolution file you need for any kind of fine art printing or large format printing. We are equipped to handle artwork of any medium. See below for some outstanding examples of our various applications.

Scanning Watercolour Paintings

Do-it-yourself scanning of watercolour paintings is notoriously difficult. Most watercolour pigments are transparent and watercolour paper is designed to reflect light back through the paint, which makes it challenging to reproduce an image akin to its original. For most normal scanners, it is near impossible to pick up the subtleties of light washes especially when you are employing a heavily transparent style with minimal paint layers. Areas left white or with light washes will appear blown out and can alter the surrounding colours. Moreover, watercolour papers appear white relative to our eyes, but they actually contain colour. When your watercolour artwork is getting scanned the paper grain will most likely show a lot more than in reality.

With our advanced lighting systems, we capture a texture free image from your watercolour painting that is precise with nearly identical colours. On any textured watercolour paper, we can capture and digitize your painting to the finest detail possible. The reproduction can then be printed on any art paper, in turn becoming a new artwork in and of itself.

WARNING! A watercolour painting should not be rolled into a scanner because it will likely result in damage, therefore we don’t recommend roll-in systems.

Scanning Canvas Oil Paintings

Many artists who paint with oils use very thick layers of paint to create physical texture. Oil-based paintings need months to years of drying time to fully cure. The surface may seem dry, but the paint can still be soft underneath. Also, if an oil painting is overworked physically it tends to either polish or crack hardened area, depending on the age and dryness of the elements. Our scanning service offers a safe capturing method without touching the paint surface. Utilizing a specialty lighting technique, we precisely replicate all textures of the painting.

Scanning Acrylic Paintings

Acrylic painting surfaces are not as delicate as that of oil paintings, however they still need to be handled with great caution. An acrylic painting can be captured and digitized by a large format flatbed scanner like our premium CRUSE Scanner. Acrylic paintings can also be captured by an experienced still life photographer with advanced knowledge of post-editing and lighting. This process involves high resolution imaging and lighting equipment. Large-scale canvases can be professionally photographed in a studio under quality lighting, sometimes in sections, and then digitally stitched together to generate optimal reproduction.

Note: Acrylic painting on canvas or wood panel cannot be scanned using drum scanners. Such scanners are based on a cylinder on which the image must be mounted.

WARNING! Acrylic paintings cannot be scanned in any next-door print shop with a copy printer/ scanner or even a blue print scanner as the process may damage your painting.

Scanning Pastel Paintings Without Risk of Damaging +[PLUS]

Many paintings would be damaged by placing them on a scanner’s surface, especially pastel paintings, no matter how well it is protected. Professional colourless fixative can prevent your pastel painting from smudging, alas your artwork can still be damaged through contact scanning methods. Your pastel painting can be captured by an experienced still life photographer after mounting it carefully on a board. The Ideal way to digitize a pastel painting is to use a flatbed table scanner such as our CRUSE Scanner. Our table scanning solution will scan any artwork up to 44×72 inch and your painting surface won’t be touched, which is of utmost importance regarding pastels. Even when this medium is being framed, one must ensure that it does not contact the glass.

WARNING! Pastel paintings should not be scanned with a roll-in scanner, a high drum scanner or a flatbed scanner with a glass surface, as these will damage the artwork.

Scanning Drawing Artwork

Scanning pencil drawings, whether it’s coloured pencil or graphite, can be challenging, as all the lighter lines and values can be lost. To scan a drawing it is sometimes necessary to eliminate the paper-texture during the process. The paper colour can also interfere with the white balance, as paper appears white relative to the eye, but contains colour. The other critical aspect is that the artwork surface should not be touched. A flat bed table scanner such as our CRUSE Scanner is an ideal system for drawings as it enables us to capture a texture free image from your drawing that is precise with nearly identical lines and values. Camera scanning methods can also deliver a sharp, high resolution digital file as long as the work is done professionally by an experienced still life photographer in a controlled lighting environment.

WARNING! Drawings should not be in contact with any surface. It cannot be scanned with a small flatbed scanner, since artwork needs to be faced down on a glass surface. Also, a scanner that is designed for blueprints should not be used for drawings because of the pinch roll-in systems that are used to pull the artwork through the scanner that will ultimately damage the piece.

Scanning Paintings As Large as 8 Feet

We are determined to deliver high resolution digital files for the purpose of producing a precise archival print, also called ‘Giclee Reproductions’. No matter how large your piece is, we capture every detail right down to the finest brush stroke. Our professional scanning service enables us to reproduce an array of sizes, textures and shapes; we can scan artwork up to 8×8 feet! Thereafter, we are enthusiastic to offer our state of the art printing services to complete the reproduction process. Come visit us today for outstanding results in your fine art scanning and printing needs.

How We Digitize Artwork For Art Reproduction

Non-contact Scanning – Variable Resolution – Any Artwork Thickness – Advanced Lighting – Vacuum Table loadable with up to 300 kg

Based on our own experiences and that of expert associates, direct scanners don’t alway produce an ideal art reproduction in comparison to our digital capturing method. In general, the CRUSE scanning approach to art reproduction works well with most small, medium and simple pieces as it can work very well and effective. However, when scanning larger or some sort of textured pieces we recommend using a photographic approach to create high quality files for digital reproduction, which often surprises people. Our method allows us to create a much sharper image than a direct scan, and with no risk of damaging the artwork. A few of the problems with direct scanning large pieces are that they are inherently uneven, suffer from poor focus, and, almost without exception use fluorescent lighting, which is not the best option for art reproduction. Due to the highly uneven light output, this will lead to noticeable, often very hard to correct, colour errors.

With small works, any errors are simple to fix, but with the larger works the process simply doesn’t work very well, requiring instead, a personal touch to achieve a perfect recreation. Also, many scanners touch the original works with rollers, as they have automatic feed mechanisms, typically used for documents. Contrarily, our capture method uses accurate lighting and keeps the image detailed and crisp like the original. After comparing all the major scanning options, like Colortrac, Cruse, etc, we’ve found that, unfortunately, they can visibly mark delicate original works.