As it happens, I'm a pastel artist in addition to my day job of commercial photographer. Personally, I think the risk of damage is just too great to put a pastel painting on a drum scanner. If you are familiar with "soft" pastels (which is what I'm assuming we're talking about) you'll know that any touch of the surface will smear the color. It never "dries" like oil paint and you cannot use enough fixative to make it so that it can be handled. I have been making "giclee" (inkjet) prints of my pastels using the output from a good digital camera and I'm very happy with it. In the past, the preferred way to do this was to get a large transparency (4x5 or 120) and then have that scanned... but using a digital camera is a lot easier and cuts out a lot of hassle and expense.
Putting the pastel directly on a drum scanner might produce a great file, but I think the risk is not worth it when you have the option of shooting it with a top flight digital camera. I doubt that one would be able to see much difference. IMHO Rick Lee -------------------------------------------- www.rickleephoto.com -------------------------------------------- =============================================================== GO TO http://www.prodig.org for ~ GUIDELINES ~ un/SUBSCRIBING ~ ITEMS for SALE
