Auto Document Scanning and Peg Hole Registration Part I Auto Document Scanning 1. Begin by cutting out a.5 x.5 piece of black electricians tape or black gaff tape. *Do not use duct tape or anything else that has a highly sticky adhesive back! 2. Place the piece of tape on the underside of the Auto Document Feeder (ADF). 3. Close the lid and load your paper. Make sure your peg holes are facing the same side of the ADF that you taped earlier. 4. Open Epson Scan from the Application folder. 5. From the top of the Epson Scan window, set the Mode to Professional Mode.
6. Set the Epson Scan settings as follows: Document Type: Reflective Document Source: ADF-Single Sided Auto Exposure Type: Document Image Type: 24bit Color (typically, though you may choose differently) Resolution: dependent on the project. Typically 72, 150, or 300dpi Document Size: 8.50x14 (native size of the scanning bed) 7. To set the Target Size, do the following: Click the Preview button. The ADF will scan your first piece of paper. Reload that scanned piece back in the feeder tray. Epson Scan will display the scan in the Preview window. In the Preview window, use your mouse to draw a marquee box around the edges of your piece of paper. In the bottom left of the Preview window it will read out the Height and Width of your selection area. It should be around 8.5x11 (the native size of your paper). 8. Back in the Epson Scan settings window, change the Adjustments settings if desired (Exposure, Tone, Color, etc.). 9. Leaving the Unsharp Mask Filter checked ON is usually desired, but you may turn it off if you wish. 10. When you are satisfied with the settings, click the Scan button.
11. The File Save Settings window will open. Set this window as follows: Location: set to Other, then click the Choose button. Select a folder in Temp_storage or your personal FireWire drive to save the scanned files to. *Do not scan to the Desktop or any other location on your network Home Directory (such as Pictures, Documents, etc.) File Name: enter a name for your file name prefix and enter a number for the file name suffix (usually starting with 001). Image Format: use your preferred format, or the format requested by your instructor. Typically, this is TIFF. Click the OK button. 12. The Epson ADF scanner will now automatically scan your stack of paper. 13. When finished, find your folder full of scanned images on Temp_storage, or your FireWire drive. Open several to insure they scanned correctly. If you re satisfied with the scanning results, quite Epson Scan. 14. Gently remove the black tape from the scanner! Make sure to remove all remaining residue.
Part II Peg Hole Registration 1. Open Adobe After Effects 2. Select Composition > New Composition 3. Select the composition settings appropriate for your animation and click OK. For purposes of this example, we will use the NTSC-DV preset. 4. Choose File > Import > File 5. In the Import File window, navigate to the folder your scanned images are in. Select the FIRST image from the list. Its file name should end in 001. Choose Import As: Footage at the bottom of the window. Make sure the check box for Sequence is ON Click the Open button 6. Your still images will be collected into a single image sequence footage file in the Project window. Drag this file from the Project window down to your Timeline. 7. Most likely, you will need to Rotate the layer to orientate the image correctly within your Composition.
8. Scale the layer so you can see the black peg holes in the Composition window. 9. Make sure the timeline indicator is placed on the first frame in the timeline. Select Window > Workspace > Motion Tracking. 10. Double-click on your image sequence layer in the Timeline to open it in the Layer window. The image may appear to be on its side again- this is normal and OK. *All motion tracking/stabilization has to happen in the Layer window, NOT the Composition window!
11. While in the Layer window, Zoom In to at least 100% and navigate within the window until you can see the upper-most oval peg hole. 12. Go to the Tracker Controls palette. Click the Stabilize Motion button. 13. A group of squares will appear in your Layer window. This is your first tracker, named Track Point 1. There are three components to the tracker: The innermost x is the attach point. It needs to occupy the center of the element to be tracked. The smaller square is the feature region. You place the feature region tightly around its tracked feature (in this case the peg hole), completely enclosing the tracked feature, but including as little of the surrounding image as possible. The outer square is the search region. It s like a fence that the feature region can travel within. It must accommodate the movement of the tracked feature. Assuming your peg holes won t move around too much from page to page, you don t need to set the search region too large. 14. Drag Track Point 1 to the uppermost oval and encompass as illustrated above.
15. Go back to the Tracker Controls palette. Set these settings as follows: Motion Source: the name of your layer Current Track: Tracker 1 Track Type: Stabilize Click on the Rotation box. A second Track Point will appear. Leave Position checked. Do Not check on Scale. 16. Your job now is to place this second tracker over the bottom-most oval. These two trackers will use each other to determine how to stabilize the overall image. 17. In the Trackers Controls palette, click the Analyze forward button (looks like a Play button). AE will advance through your movie analyzing the peg hole location on each frame, comparing it with the location of the first frame of your layer and adjusting the position of the frame as needed to stabilize
18. When it s finished analyzing, click the Apply button in the Time Controls palette. This will engage the stabilization to all the frames. *Until you click Apply, no stabilization is activated. 19. The Motion Tracker Apply Options window will popup. Set Apply Dimensions to X and Y. Click OK. 20. AE will take you back to your Composition window. Play through the movie to test the results of the Stabilization. 21. If you are not satisfied with the results, simple double-click on the layer again to bring it back to the Layer window and adjust as needed. There are additional options available by clicking the Options button (see the AE user manual for additional information.) You can also re-analyze from the first frame or any other frame of your choosing. Be sure to click the Apply button when finished adjusting to make the changes happen! Additional Information- Once it's stabilized, you are free to scale and reposition the layer it the Comp window any way you want. Avoid changing the Position or Anchor point options however, as these are now linked to the tracking settings. If you want to go back and color or adjust your single frames it's easy- 1. Find the frame file in the Finder. 2. Open it in Photoshop and edit away. 3. When done, go back to AE. In the Project window, Right-click on the image sequence file and choose Reload Footage. AE will update with the revised files.