I found that with a digital camera there is to much colour variation. ie. the flash, shadows, reflections, it is easier to make a stencil from a 400dpi scan than a photo or even a 1200 dpi scan.
sounds crazy but even when i sent a high res picture of a insert decal i wanted made up to the company that made my sof pf insert decals i was asked to send a 300dpi scan of the image. They couldn't get the colours right from the photo.
as you know most playfields & cabinets have only a few colours.but a camera picks up millions of colours. i did an experiment with a photo and a low res scan from the jokerz cabinet. i used the magic wand feature on corel draw to isolate the different colors for a stencil, i tried the picture first and had to do a heap of fix ups on the outlines, that picture i posted on the thread about what type of scanner to use to get a better focal point was the one. it took me hours to get that picture right. this after noon i scanned the same picture (400 dpi) and had the artwork for the stencils made up in half an hour.
fortunately my last hobby was fish tanks, i made a few and i still have my trusty glass cutter. not that i could be bothered but if i do scratch the glass i can cut a new piece. but i definitely will try not to scratch it.
