There is no magic bullet when it comes to flatbed scanning.

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

I had posted my 3144 page book disassembly thread at a photo forum. They poo-pooed the BW scans because they have some transparency due to the nature of the thin paper. Consequently, some of the printing on the verso shows through. They recommended I use a black backer.

Well, I'm not new to scanning or black backers. I've been scanning since the late 1990s. And I've experimented with black backers from many years ago. The black backers do cut the transparency way down. But the tradeoff is they do not reproduce the original faithfully. You just have to pick which way to go with this type of job. Poor quality color and white reproduction scans with less transparency or a faithful reproduction with more transparency. You can work on the black backer scans in post. But that only goes so far. And to do post on 3144 scans is too much for me. Batch processing never seems to do the job on these vintage scans and there are always problems. So that slavish job of post processing 3144 scans would be for someone else. And that someone else would hopefully be getting paid to do that job.

Here are some test scans with white, black and various shades of gray backers. The top of the scan shows the type of backer used. The file name also tells which backer was used.

The light gray backer does the best job with reproduction other than white. But if offers the most transparency of the dark backers. Another problem beside off-color reproduction with using colored backers is the originals on this job barely fit the scanner. Very little wiggle room. Some of the type can be tight to one side or the other as well as the top. If the scanner had a dedicated dark backer that would help with this problem. But when you position the original off the edge of the scanner trying to split the difference and then have to hand overlay a backer on it, the original invariably moves. You end up scanning and rescanning the same original over and over again trying to get it right. That is fine for a handful of scans, but not for 3144 flatbed scans.

Download these files so you have a library of test scans. And if you do use colored backers for scans, make sure you are happy with the post job to make them look acceptable. If you have a sheetfed scanner and use the 'scan both sides' option, sometimes that helps with reducing transparency. It just depends on the original. And a copy stand can help with transparency. But copy stands offer their own issues. Experiment to find what works best for you.

Examples of using white, black and gray backers to reduce transparency when scanning D. D. Teoli Jr. A. C. : D. D. Teoli Jr. A. C. : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

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Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Archival Collection
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Small Gauge Film Archive
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Advertising Archive
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. VHS Video Archive
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Popular Culture Archive
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Audio Archive
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Social Documentary Photography

Edited July 19, 2025 by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.

[Karim D. Ghantous]

I don't scan a lot of documents, but I have used black paper to scan the odd magazine article. It works great.

One idea that you could use to eliminate the 'ghosting' of the other side: scan both sides, then horizontally flip the page behind the page you want to scan, align them, and use an app like Baselight to make the ghost page disappear. Of course this is all fancy armchair technique, as I have no idea if that has any chance of working.