All About Pocket Knives

I’m wanting to get some recommendations on which scanner is the best to use for really good images of pocketknives. I heard of several people that use scanners instead of a camera. I can’t seem to get great pictures without light reflections or shadows.etc. When using a camera. Any ideas? I’m wanting to start selling some knives in a member store here on AAPK. Thanks in advance,Mark.

I’ve wondered the same thing Mark, so I’m interested in the responses. I have a cheap (less than $75 IIRC) Epson scanner that works great for printed items and photos, but the depth of field isn’t sufficient to work well for 3-dimensional items. For pocket knives I think you’d need a scanner with at least a 1/2 inch depth of field, preferably more.

Ken

knife-nut wrote:I’m wanting to get some recommendations on which scanner is the best to use for really good images of pocketknives. I heard of several people that use scanners instead of a camera. I can’t seem to get great pictures without light reflections or shadows.etc. When using a camera. Any ideas? I’m wanting to start selling some knives in a member store here on AAPK. Thanks in advance,Mark.

Your problem is probably not the camera. Set up a light box to take photo’s in. It disperses the light, reduces reflections and you get consistent results. I take all my knife photos’ with my iPhone camera. Never heard of using a scanner for knife photo’s.
SSk

knife-nut wrote:I’m wanting to get some recommendations on which scanner is the best to use for really good images of pocketknives. I heard of several people that use scanners instead of a camera. I can’t seem to get great pictures without light reflections or shadows.etc. When using a camera. Any ideas? I’m wanting to start selling some knives in a member store here on AAPK. Thanks in advance,Mark.

Hi Mark.
If you have a recently purchased camera it probably has settings for what kind of light you're taking pictures in.
Florescent, day light, sun, shade ect. It will probably auto focus for you too if need be. It may have an option that will allow you to reduce or increase light coming in to the camera. These can be helpful settings.
As to light reflections and shadows; these can be the easiest and least expensive to over come. I took these pictures in an undercounter florescent light area. Camera adjusted. Look what I used to reduce glare and shadow.
A paper towel and wrinkled wax paper.
I wrinkled the wax paper to diffuse light but It's not necessary. I could have used two or three layers of paper towel.
The paper towel is rigid enough to let me hold it under the light with one hand and use the camera in the other hand. Be steady.
I laid down a black piece of cloth. Usually I do this at a window in daylight. Same same.
Most of my pictures of late have been taken this way.
It's just controlling light and doesn't need to be costly.
Pictures 1 and 2: Dark and light exposure.
Picture 3: Shaded on left and reflection and shadow on right.
Picture 4: The magic shield. (the cheap magic shield)
I know it's not for everybody but I just thought I'd throw it out there.

For what its worth, I agree with the opinions advocating for a camera instead of a scanner. If you have a mobile phone made after about 2016 such as an iPhone 7 or newer they have nice cameras. I don't know what the equivalent Android phone models would be, although I have read that the google Pixel 3 has a very nice camera. My experience echos what other have said with regard to lighting being the most important factor in getting a good result in a knife image.

Below is a comparison picture where the lighting was held constant for the same knife with a picture from a DSLR camera and an iPhone XS. I have a slight preference for the DSLR, but could probably fix what I don't like in the iPhone photo (bluish tint) in Photoshop. In my experience I am happier with my results when the camera is not straight-on facing the knife. This causes reflections from the shiny parts of the knife straight back to the camera. I like to have a white background that gets reflected back to the camera. The second picture below *might* communicate the point I'm trying to explain.

I have a cheap scanner built in to my printer and have never been able to achieve a result that I was happy with.

I take my pics with an IPod, about a year old. For background I keep a piece of off white paper. Very simple but it works. I also always crop my photos which not only magnifies the image but prevents it from turning sideways when I post.

I made all my initial Robeson scans using an Olympus scanner and a shallow inverted tray lined with blue felt atop the knives and scanner bed.

Problem was that as PC's died and were upgraded and Windows Operating Systems changed, Olympus declined to create compatible software for the scanner I had.

I replaced it with an Epson that doesn't do nearly the quality of three dimensional scans.

A scanner's depth of field is critical to its ability to properly depict 3-D objects. I'm not so well informed as to address that in technical terms. We need someone more computer savvy that I to address that.

An example from the old Olympus, a four blade scout/utility, probably the highest profile knife one might own.

Do two left mouse clicks on the scan.

Charlie
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I have always used an Epson flat-bed scanner, and it has good depth of field, but the images suck. For other uses it is excellent. I do have a camera but the problem is (among others) that I don't have the kind of workspace available on a moment's notice to do that sort of photo op. I just experimented with carting some stuff out to the back yard and the results were not bad; I just need to invest some time in developing a good camera protocol. Meanwhile, Barry Wolder and Charlie Campagna use a flat-bed scanner and their images are nothing short of SUPERB, so I am hoping for some good advice here on scanners, the same as the OP.

The when I used to use a scanner Charlie and I had several discussions about scanners. We both used Epson scanners and found those to be the best.

Since you are considering getting scanners for scanning knives I will share a little of my experiences both pros and cons, do's and don'ts of using a scanner.
The first thing you need is a good flatbed scanner. No document feeder, no movement of the table where the document lays. Some scanners have the table that moves back and forth and the knife laying on top of that table vibrates ever so slightly as the table moves and the resulting scans are blurry.
I was considering going back to a scanner three or four years ago. I went to my local Office Depot and discussed what I wanted with the fellow who was their "scanner person." He said they had nothing in stock that would meet my needs so at that point I went to the Epson website and looked at the ones that they offered. The ones that were down under $200 were not set up with the depth of field necessary to scan a three-dimensional object. When I was doing the research one thought that would do the same quality scans as my old Epson scanner was about $340. As I said this was three or four years ago. Looking at their webpage now I see there scanner prices have gone up. If I were going to buy a scanner I would contact someone at Epson, tell them what I wanted to do and take their recommendation on which scanner to buy.
Ultimately I decided not to buy a scanner to scan knives for my store because they are too limited to what you can do. I figured I had to have a smart phone anyway, so I got one with a good camera, the LG stylist plus, then it takes better pictures than my Minolta.

Some of the problems of using the scanner:
1 – With repeated use of scanning pocketknives the glass that the knives rest on can become scratched and even chipped. It seemed no matter how careful I was new scratches appeared until the scanner was basically useless because there would be scratches or chips marring the scan of the knife.
2 – It seems with scanners the more polished an object is, the more difficulty the scanner has scanning that object. Blades are especially bad and sometimes you end up with weird colors being reflected off of the blade typically oranges and reds. You can help correct that with software like Photoshop, but it can be a very time-consuming process to correct the color and I never figured out how to do it more than about a 40% success rate.
3 – In checking the Epson websites price it appears that the price of a scanner that I think would do the job of scanning knives is about $800. Their best one is $999, and I think there was an in between model at about $900. I would definitely not spend that kind of money without knowing for sure that the scanner would work for knives, that’s why would want to talk to the people at Epson before purchasing. There was another Epson model called a V600 listed for $229.99, which may very well do an adequate job of scanning pocketknives. I think that is about what I paid for my first Epson scanner. After about 5 to 7 years I purchased a second Epson scanner because of the scratches on the screen of my first scanner, but the second scanner would not take acceptable pictures of knives. I think it was about $150 when I bought it.

Pluses of using a scanner:
1 – With familiarity of the software that comes with the scanner you can easily adjust the size of the scan. If you scan in too high of resolution the pictures will take forever to upload to AAPK and will be gigantic on the screen. My Epson had good software for changing the size of the scan I was making.
2 – Using a scanner can be quick, if you just want to make a fast scan of a knife, but it will take practice to come to that point. The learning for me was frustrating because of the time required to learn the equipment, the software and basically to teach myself the best method of scanning knives.

The bottom line for me is that although it does take me a few minutes to set up in my shop to photograph some knives, I have found the camera on my cell phone is better than any other camera I own, or at least I can use the phone camera with greater ease. By using a tripod, a few different cloth backgrounds, and a light diffusing umbrella (purchased at my local camera store for about $30), I can take better pictures faster than what the scanner. I sometimes need to run them through Photoshop, but I had to do that with the scanner as well to get rid of a lot of glare caused by the scanner light. It seems to me I spend more time using Photoshop when I use the scanner than I do now using my camera.

I’ll this helps you guys in making your decision. I would definitely call Epson and talk to someone who really knows the scanners before you buy one so that you get a scanner that will do the job you’re asking you to do.
My apology if there are some misspelled or just plain wrong words. I’m using NaturallySpeaking to type and lately it has been misbehaving lately.

How do you crop a photo on a I pod?

I don't know about an iPod

knife-nut wrote:How do you crop a photo on a I pod?

I don't know about an iPod, but my LG Stylist Plus Android phone gives you the option of cropping a photo right after you take it, or you can wait and compare several photos and cropped the one you like the most. The cropping is done on the phone with the phone software.

The scanner has an ease of operation for me, lighting , background , etc. I use a cheap shadowbox for a cover, you can experiment as to the best color background inside the shadowbox. It's actually a 1/2 shadowbox that fits and covers the scanner. Here is a scan I just posted of a NYK farmers jack. I removed the top and replaced it with the 1/2 shadowbox.

I bought a piece of glass ,like the protective glass on a smart phone, to protect the scanners original glass. I would recommend it. Mine is a Epson Perfection V500 and it only cost about $175 (?) when I bought it about 6 or 7 years back.
Here is Bernard Levine's suggestions:

https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/how ... er.505982/

I've used a cell phone occasionally, before I got them scanned too.

As a knife buyer, I like to be able to assess the length of the blades. One way to do this via a picture that shows a top-down view of the knife with blades closed. How does one obtain this top-down view with a scanner? It seems like it would require placing the closed knife upside down on the scanner bed and it seems like the knife would want to fall over instead of stand in this position.

I have propped them up with dinasaur gizzard stones, fishing weights, another knife, etc. It is frustrating and sometimes they do fall over. Conversely, when shooting the spring side of the knife with a camera, it is the same problem. I have seen sellers setting the knife into the bristles of a shoe brush to shoot the spring side of the knife.

Correct Jerry,you need a clamp for that. I’ve held them with my hand, I haven’t had much need for it as a sales tool.

This is a subject that I have struggled with since day one. I have never used a scanner but I have discovered that good pictures are all about Correct lighting number one. Second your camera settings are imperative . Familiarize yourself with your camera, it will do amazing things on different settings.Thirdly take lots of shots under different scenarios and every now and then you will get a good one.

tongueriver wrote:I have propped them up with dinasaur gizzard stones, fishing weights, another knife, etc. It is frustrating and sometimes they do fall over. Conversely, when shooting the spring side of the knife with a camera, it is the same problem. I have seen sellers setting the knife into the bristles of a shoe brush to shoot the spring side of the knife.

You can get these knife stands from several dealers, I bought mine at SMKW. They don’t cost much and it makes photography a whole lot easier. Included a picture of a Schrade on a stand. I think I paid a couple of dollars or less for a pack of 3 of these.

I have read about using scanners. For me my LG Android phone has a very good camera. and LED true day light lamps that are dim able. As for reflections, they do sell dulling spray for product photographers for advertising. Have heard of putting milk in a spray bottle, not tried it. Light boxes can be home made or ready built from camera supply stores on line.

I think a few of you have seen this but this article (click the pdf at this link) written by Mark Zalesky has some great info on knife photography - my light box was based on his example - works perfectly, easy to make and cheap!!

Here's the link (can't upload a pdf here) - http://www.knifeworld.com/kwphotoarticle.html