That is the answer! You can see the work of plexiglass. It has the thickness of 2 millimetres, but it's enough to press the whole page down. And now is the curved side by fold area very minimal. The another page is holding at 90 degrees angle. That is enough. A 180 degree by scanner is here not needed. This is the biggest good point about cam-scanner! It has low damage at the fold area. :-)


Almost 100% flat. :-) The curved sides and lines are very minimal and most straight.
There is another good point with plexiglass use.

Holding page without plexiglass is sure troublesome and must be edited away in Photoshop. With plexiglass, your thumb can now move more away from the page.

Very important! The surface of the plexiglas must keep dust-free during the shots. Make it clean if you see some dust. Normally you can edit some dust away in Photoshop, but better keep it minimal. And the plexiglas must have one good straight side. You press this side against the fold area of the manga. Thanks to the low placed lights you cannot see the dust quickly. Your fingerprints at the surface is also very minimal to seen. Don't worry too much about it.

Surprised enough with plexiglass method? Okay, we can now start with the real shots.

First the software that is bundled with Canon PowerShot G3. One of them is RemoteCapture.

It's the standard tool by most Canon cameras.
First we must see something on the monitor of the camera. That helps with moving pages until it's straight and centered in the camera lens.

Camera (C) > Camera Display Settings... > select Camera LCD monitor.
Now the shooting mode must also be configured.
Flash must Off. Whitebalance is set to Fluorescent because the use of the lights. ISO Speed must at 50, to keep noise low and image quality high. The Tv/Av setting is at Shutter Speed Priority AE, and the Tv is set at 1/50 sec. 1/50 sec is lowest and safest speed to prevent blurring image if you shake manga page a little.
Then the Exposure. I have it set at +1/3 because the manga is a little dark. A bit more brightness is added to the photo.
No Photo Effect needed, and Metering mode is Evaluative.
That should to the work. You may set for yourself the good directory to store images in another window Save. I store it in D:/Studio/ :-)

Now we are back to first tab Angle Adjustment.

First the AF-assist light is Off, because there is enough light and useless: it's blocked by black board below the camera.
Marco can be set on Off, if the picture is sharp enough. Set it on On, when your camera cannot make the image sharp enough.
In my way, the camera lens is more than 50 cm away from the table surface. That doesn't need really Macro mode.
And yes, don't forget the photo size/quality. It's set on highest Large/Fine setting. That is good enough for the quality.
Finally, we can turn the camera preview on: press on Viewfinder On.
You see the table surface and lights now on the camera monitor and on the computer screen.

Move now the zoom level until the whole page is almost filled the LCD monitor.
Click at once on AF Lock button to brighten and sharpen the preview in the monitor. You may keep AF locked for high speed, but i choose for safetly purpose unlocked. Because the thickness of manga is not same at both page sides.

Because you have already use both hands for holding both pages of the manga, how can you press the shutter of the camera remotely? There is one solution: with your feet and a wireless mouse.

You must place a piece of tape over the sensor of the mouse, so the mouse pointer doesn't moving away accidentially if you press the left button. The pointer must keep above the Release button of the Remote Capture program.

After releasing the shutter, you keep the page unmoved until you hear second click of the camera. If you can see the image is transferring to the computer, you can now go to the next image. Wait until the preview image on the monitor is back again.
Move the next page until it's good centered in the camera lens. Check the plexiglass if it's good placed against the fold area and flat enough. Press again on the left button of the mouse for next shot.
You see, once you do it, it goes now little faster if you know how it works. It's now more easier than scanner work.
You don't need to undebound the manga!

After many shots, i have the files now for example (Capture_xxxxx.JPG):

We can now start with editing the photos!
Next tutorial!