One Area Where Flatbed Scanners Fall Flat.

I use flatbed scanners 99% of the time when imaging stamps, documents, or covers for my website or for sale on ebay. And for most items the results are infinitely better than cellphone camera or even DLSR. Lighting and positioning with the latter is a pain.

But for some items, flatbed scanners just don't work... or at least I have not been able to figure out a scanning method that produces effective results.

Take the following billhead. Rather nondescript design.



But what makes it interesting and a fairly unusual item, is that the printing is done in metallic gold ink, a very costly option for as mundane a document as a billhead, but the above image doesn't show the reflective nature of it at all.

It's only when you capture it at an angle (or with lighting at an angle) that you can see the reflective metallic "lustre" of the ink.





I wish there was an easier way to capture the reflective nature of the ink. I have numerous revenue documents printed partially or fully in metallic inks where the scan just looks dull and lifeless compared to the item in hand.

Suggestions?

Do what you did to show the reflection here.

Flatbed scanners are also quite poor copying 3 dimensional or curved objects. But as you noted they work for 99% of the time.