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I've always had this problem so if it's a symptom of all scanners it's just that I'm woefully ignorant of how they work.

Whenever I scan a picture it always comes out lighter than it actually is and I have to use the programs it came with to darken it a little. As you can guess this usually messes up the white areas. Is there anyway this can be countered (other than using coloured paper)?

It's a HP Scanjet - because I know at least one person will say my product is rubbish, recommend something better to me if you do think that.

I have this problem when scanning as well. I can sort of compensate by setting it to "restore faded colors" but that has some other issues, one which is that everything is darker, including whites. Also, this can only be done when scanning in color, which makes file sizes much larger. In other words, I don't know.

I also have an HP.

One thing you might do: Draw dark. Draw very dark.

*shrug*

It's a HP Scanjet - because I know at least one person will say my product is rubbish, recommend something better to me if you do think that.

It's rubbish :p Just kidding, don't know really, have you tried placing a semi-think piece of card behind the paper?

Most scanners bleach the types of inks used in art. Just use some editing software to clean it up and improve the contrast.

The HP scanning software usually lets you adjust these things

Also, ScanJet is basically all of HP's flatbed scanners. You should probably be a little more specific if you want to specify which scanner you have.

Like I said, I use the programs it came with to edit after I scan but I can't get it to look clean, not like some drawings/comics I can name. I'm probably doing something wrong.

It's a Scanjet 3800, Oni Lukos.

New scanner?

You may not be doing anything wrong per say. All scanners I ever used faded images a bit. Haven't had to scan many hand drawn pictures but I've noticed that the fading is usually worse with them than with photos. As for a way to fix this I could say. I think I made some headway myself with the editing software (mines is HP BTW), but never to the levels I was satisfied with.

The problem you may be having is a simple setting you can fidget with when you've scanned an image. If you have a more newer scanner, (scanners from circa 2004 and up.) you should have an option to adjust lightening and darkening values. The options generally include something like Highlights, Midtones, and Shadows you can adjust the levels on. If you lower the highlights and midtones a good ways, you should get a very soft, near photographically identical scan.

My technique is to track down a sheet of 8½"×11" black paper (or trim one down to that size) and tape it to the underside of the lid. In the olden days, scanners actually had a solid black lining up there, which ensured that the drawing wouldn't turn out too light but sometimes made it come out too dark instead. But at least you had enough contrast that you could adjust the levels and be sure there wouldn't be any lines missing.

Some scanners also have pre-scan brightness and contrast sliders in the TWAIN interface (the window that has the Scan and Preview buttons). Whether this actually affects the light level of the lamp or just auto-adjusts the image between the scan and the import, I don't know.

Some scanners also have pre-scan brightness and contrast sliders in the TWAIN interface (the window that has the Scan and Preview buttons). Whether this actually affects the light level of the lamp or just auto-adjusts the image between the scan and the import, I don't know.

I don't know either, but SANE (a different interface) can do both (though the former doesn't always work).

I will try out these suggestions (yes even yours Snow) in due course and find which is best for me.

Thank you for the advice.