What would YOU do? (vintage magazines)

[RetroToday]

Most saddle-stitched magazines (the kind with staples thru the back of the spine, like a comic book or a pamphlet) will lay reasonably flat without problems -- and usually there's enough of a bleed space at the edge of the page that any shadow can be cropped out of the scan. Perfect-bound magazines -- the sort with a square back and a glued-on cover -- are more difficult, but if they're not too thick, you can get a reasonable scan by very careful cropping as long as the page isn't too close to the middle of the magazine.

You'd have to get a very heavy book to hold a perfect bound book down and you might run the risk of cracking your scanner's glass bed.

In some cases, I found the only thing I could do to get a good image off of a perfect bound magazine or book was to take photos of the pages with my camera with a micro lense. I attached the camera to a copy stand and shot downwards to the book which I held open and flat with one hand.

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

You'd have to get a very heavy book to hold a perfect bound book down and you might run the risk of cracking your scanner's glass bed.

In some cases, I found the only thing I could do to get a good image off of a perfect bound magazine or book was to take photos of the pages with my camera with a micro lense. I attached the camera to a copy stand and shot downwards to the book which I held open and flat with one hand.

I imagine if one had the wherewithal to do so, one could rig up a clamping device to hold pages flat. Professional photographers must have some trick they use.