Yes, my old HP 4c scanner was great for this. I could use it as a very closeup camera, the depth of focus was great.
But then I got a very thin Canon scanner. Anything not in intimate contact with the glass is out-of-focus. Impossible to scan a manual or book pages in. I practically had to iron letters flat, or the lines adjacent to the folds would be blurry. Horrible.
Too bad my old HP died. I used it to scan my vinyl cutter produced PCBs in the Files section. Worked much better than using a digital camera, no flash reflection, no parallax from a closeup.
Steve Greenfield AE7HD
--- In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, Stefan Trethan <stefan_trethan@...> wrote:
>
> A scanner also works well, even for the component side.
> The image can look slightly strange, especially with taller
> components, since perspective is missing.
>
> Apparently the older scanners have a better focus depth than the new
> very thin scanners.
>
> ST
>