I've just found this great tutorial on how to edit scanned drawings that don't look like the ones on paper

It it here and in the " Artist's Comments" you can find links to other great tutorials

Hope you'll like it

thanks Hellen, this is good

I think i prefer the flatbed scanner also. But the one i had died on me and I purchased an HP Deskjet F4140 "All in one". At first installation I went to "My Computer" and clicked the "Scanner" icon. For several months the light values on my scans were completely washed out and I had to darken the dark values too much to get my scans even close to the original drawing.

I finally found there was a program on the CD that came with the scanner that gave me two programs to select from to control the scans. In one of the programs it has an option, "Restore Faded Color". It is ironic but this changes the colors on color photos, but restores the faint values on my drawings, so now my scanner does a better job. But, I still have to do some editing and also change the file format. So it might also be a good idea to check out all the programs on the CD that came with your scanner.

BRB.

I don't have photo shop - but I do have Nero Photo Snap, and I always tweek my scans - at first I felt like it was cheating - but realised that the lights would never be seen if I didn't do something - no more twinges of conscience now - I just tweek away till its as close to real life as possible.

I have HP Deskjet F4180 "All in one" so it's almost the same, but i have no idea how to do "restore faded color" .. i usually use "HP Solution Center" to scan a drawing, even it takes a lo to do that

I'll take a look on that CD

Thank you for sharing that