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My brother is an illustrator. He owns an A4 scanner, and it seems A2 scanners are too expensive for him.

And he makes most of his creation in A2 format now.

Is there a simple program to scan a grand format with a little scanner and then assemble the whole image?

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Photoshop can help. If you ensure that there is an overlap between the various tiles of the scanning procedure you can then use File > Automate > Photomerge. It will analyze the files you give it and identify common pixels and reposition/overlap the art as it sees fit. With a little care during the scanning process, it can make stitching the tiles together a little less painful.

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I have an A3 colour scanner, but my artwork is often larger than that in size.

To capture the full image, I do four scans with each scan area overlapping. I then use Microsoft ICE (Image Composite Editor) which is free, to then assemble and join the four images. It's an automated process and works very well. Often the peripheral edges dont always align, so you may may need to crop around the edges a few pixel rows, else scale (stretch) or copy the adjacent visible pixels to the missing edge row in Photoshop or whatever editor you use.

My scans are 1200 dpi and the joins to my eye are seamless almost 100% of the time, despite the "edge" issue. But then again my artwork is abstract, so it may be a more forgiving genre.

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Nothing automated I'm aware of.

Most use Photoshop to scan pieces then reassemble, either that or pay someone to scan using a drum scanner at a local service bureau.

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    As someone who's had to painfully reassemble posters -- just cough up the cash and have the local print store / service bureau do it. You will be happier for it. The best option is to see if a local university has a large enough scanner and doesn't mind doing it for you.
    – Aarthi
    Jan 23, 2013 at 23:29
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I had the same issue, as I was looking for an A2 scanner to scan my daughter's artwork. I ended up getting a Colortrac ScanLF, which is a 24" sheet-fed scanner meant for A1 blueprints. It's not cheap at $2,000, but not outrageous either. If you want a photo-quality model, you'd have to go up to a $4,500 Contet HD Quattro 2490 sheet-fed scanner or a $6,700 Contex iFlex HD A2 flatbed.

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