100% size, CMYK 300 dpi as tiff or eps would be fine. But here are few questions that need to be addressed:

Doesn't your Illustrator know how to present an electronic file for the publisher?
Are you making the book in another software application yourself? Which one?
Or what form are you sending your book to a publisher?
What size are the illustrations? Would they fit into your scanner?
Does your scanner have any scratches in the glass?
What scanner software and application are you using? (Photoshop?)
Are they in color?
Are the illustrations consecutive and dependent on each other so as the color needs to be maintained? ie, a little read wagon needs to stay the same shade of red, a blue balloon needs to stay the same shade of blue? If so you need to make sure you have calibrated your monitor and have the right color management set up that is compatible with your publisher/printing press.

Doesn't your Illustrator know how to present an electronic file for the publisher?
- This is the first time for the illustrator, as well as myself.

Are you making the book in another software application yourself? Which one?
- I will be using Illustrator (if need be), and InDesign to do the final typeset

Or what form are you sending your book to a publisher?
- When I submit it for print, they require me to create a PDF/X-1a:2001 compliant PDF with the following (InDesign) settings…

* printer = PostScriptFile
* Print: Document (Profile US Web Coated (SWOP) v2)
* Options: Color handling - Let InDesign Determine Colors
* Options: Printer Profile - Document CMYK - US Web Coated (SWOP) v2

What size are the illustrations? Would they fit into your scanner?
- She has not yet drawn them. I am trying to get some specifics down first. The book dimensions will be 8.5 x 8.5.

Does your scanner have any scratches in the glass?
- My scanner sucks, so I will definitely have to take somewhere else. Unless you could (please) suggest a good at home scanner for me to purchase? I used to have a Lexmark, but sold it. Now I have an HP all-in-one and it is absolutely terrible.

What scanner software and application are you using? (Photoshop?)
- If I scanned it, most likely Photoshop (CS3)

Are they in color?
- Yes they will be.

Are the illustrations consecutive and dependent on each other so as the color needs to be maintained? ie, a little read wagon needs to stay the same shade of red, a blue balloon needs to stay the same shade of blue? If so you need to make sure you have calibrated your monitor and have the right color management set up that is compatible with your publisher/printing press.
- From the direction I gave, yes the color would need to be maintained.

Not to be nosy, but is this one of those 'vanity' presses? A publisher that would sign up a first time illustrator and a first time author sounds mighty fishy to me.

So are you using InDesign or Illy.
FYI, Illy is not to be used for multipage items like books. Not even CS4.
InDesign would be the better choice.

Scanning depends on the art and how it is being printed. If it is line art, you want to scan much higher than 300dpi at final size.

Is the illustrator doing hand-art or computer art?

Is the artwork something that will fit on a scanner bed.

If this is a professional book, you may want to go for professional scanning. While Canon makes a fairly decent low cost desktop scanner that does perfectly adequate work for common letter or 2-page spread sized scans, I'm not sure what your quality expectations are. I'd go to a full service bureau or image 'lab' before going to Kinkos or the like - ie go somewhere they don't have high school kids running the equipment.

It will be hand-art that should fit on a scanner bed, and I will be using InDesign for the layout.

Thanks for the advice. lol at the teenage kids at Kinkos.

I used Kinkos all through college.
Quark was mystifying to them and I usually had to output the work. <granted Quark was new V3 at the time>
Resolution calculations were beyond them. I had to specify the scan requirements.
I once watched a kid dump Cyan toner into the Magenta pot on a color photocopier – just before he ran my job. Luckily it was a set of singles. There was enough magenta at the bottom of the pot to finish before they got too far off. LOL!

Why not get yourself a book and read up on it. I'd recommend this book

http://www.amazon.com/Real-World-Sca.../dp/0321241320


You should be scanning at 100% at 1200 dpi for reproduction. If you're going to redraw it in Illustrator you may not need that high resolution. But I'd still scan it at 1200 dpi. Then you can have that version there and do a Save As in a lower resolution.

If you're going to use the illustrations as is then scan at 1200 dpi and don't save it as a jpg, a tiff would be best.

If you're going to be redrawing them then you can save it as a jpg. But again make sure you scan in a high res version at 1200dpi and reduce that and do Save As for different qualities for different uses.

Lol @ "cyan in the magenta pot". That is a $2,000 service call if you don't have a contract. I wouldn't go to Fedinko's with anything I cared about, because no matter how good your system is, and Fedinko's has a very good system, you simply can't train somebody to give a damn or to be less stupid. That being said, as with most printshops, you get out what you put in.

If you specify what you want as absolutely crystal-clear as you possibly can, it becomes far more likely that you will get back what you want. This is true, no matter where you go.

Before going to print, insist on a print proof, and ask that they finish it, including all bindery, so that you can see what it will look like all the way done. My printshop is sometimes not-so-good at this, but it prevents problems cropping up down the line, like discovering that a line of text runs off the page, or something silly like that. My goal with proofs is that the customer approves WHAT THEY'RE GOING TO GET. It creates a clearer expectation on both sides of the counter.

Good luck - you can never have enough of this.

What is 'print' in this situation? Colour laser? How many copies are you making? Are you doing the page imposition? I'm presuming there's no bleeds on anything, right?

Are you hoping to submit a copy to a real book publisher by any chance?

PRINTDRIVER - lol.

EUGENETYSON - I am going to check that book out. Looks like there is a lot of good info there that I will need going forward.

MDOHRN - Yes, I always request a proof. I just want to make sure that I start off on the right foot to prevent getting that far to realize I need to restart the project.

TO ALL (1) - Can you guys recommend any good scanners? I have been on ZDNET Reviews and Amazon, but thought maybe you guys have a preference. Appears Canon is pretty good. How about Lexmark?

TO ALL (2) - Now this may be a dumb question, but when I crop won’t that leave edge lines? Say for one of the illustrations I instructed her to simply draw one object (pair of boxing gloves) with no background. So I scan, crop then work on the layout in InDesign. When it goes to print, won’t the cropped area show since it doesn’t truly have a transparent background? Or am I thinking too hard on this one?

BROACHER – It depends on what your definition of 'real' is. Granted I only have 'one' book under my belt, but technically I am a 'real' publisher...lol. The print service I use is LSI, and thusfar I don’t have any complaints. They provided me with a template (guidelines) for bleed lines. I simply have to put everything together before digitally submitting. So in a nutshell, POD.

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http://www.unnecessaryquotes.com/

Your image will have a white background, or rather the colour and texture of the paper. You will need to draw a clipping path around the images if you don't want the image to show.

There are several ways to rid of the background, you can can use Extraction, Masks, Clipping Paths, Erase the background, redraw the graphic.

If you redraw the graphic it won't have the handdrawn look.

But you can look up the other ways to get rid of the background of your image.

I will need to read up on some tutorials. Sure there is probably plenty of posts for extraction, masks and clipping paths within this forum (and on the net). Guess I will be busy Google'ing today.

I had asked another guy this before and he told me - "Crop around the outside of the drawing and fade it outwards, this way it will have a blur into the true white and that blur WILL have a transparency because it will have been created in photoshop."

Flatbeds are notorious for uneven sensor scanning. Lets say you have a legal size glass, not all of the plate area will scan at the same detail. Then there is the interlacing effect or in other words a type of digital compensation for the lack scanner resolution. "IF" image and colour are big factors then colour transparencies and drum scanning of the art is the the way to go

Is drum scanning pretty expensive?