you can scan them on your flatbed scanner and then reattach them in photoshop.

or take them to a professional place and they can create large scans for you.

infinitely better way of doing would be to do this;

back tape the drawing to the wall, get a 35 mm canon ae-1 - this model has a feature that allows you to check your image [i think it checks the depth of field previewer] prior to taking the photo, get tungsten slide film, purchase some tungsteng bulbs, place camera on tripod perpendicular to the image, set up both lamps on the same plane as the camera, place at a 45degree angle to image, try placing one lamp up as a fill light and then both at the image, use a sheet of text to focus the lense, because it is much harder to get lineweights in focus than it is text, and then use the bracketing technique...hope that helps

thanks.
betadinesutures- question: what is special about tungsten slide film, can't i just use a regular digital camera and use the tungsten lights as you described to create good lighting in an interior setting? thanks again.

i believe tungsten light is white, and using tungsten slide film produces photos without any yellowing...i think that is what i recall, i just remember the process producing amazing quality images.....tungsten is a very, very, very hot lamp too, so be careful.

i get it now.
thanks!

photographing drawings is so 1985. get them scanned. if the drawings are a1, there's no way that even a technical pan film will pick up the kind of detail a scan will.

by the time you've payed for the film, found the lights, taken 3+ photos of each drawing, and spent a day doing it, (and then remember that for almost anything you want to use the images for you need to scan into the computer anyway); it's cheaper and better to take them to get scanned.

The major exception would be if the drawings can't go through a drum scanner: (bits stuck on, drawn on card or wood, covered in brittle varnish...)

i love manual photography, but its just the wrong tool for the task, IMHO.

40-180 per drawing? whoa. perhaps i would seek this option if i were putting together a book, but a portfolio that someone will spend 2 minutes thumbing??

where can go to get larger items scanned?

agree with agfa, the photography is archaic. you'll probably end up scanning your negs anyway. just get a professional print shop to scan it. kinkos might even offer the service in certain places. just be sure to check their scan to make sure they did a decent job.

worst case is that you'll have to use a big flatbed and piece together the images.

getting them scanned, or even getting a PMT, is the best way. i still have to photograph drawings from time to time however, and for some reason the best way seems to wait for a really, really bright sunny day and then photograph them in the shade. i don't know why this is, i guess the shade allows more uniformity and the wrinkles and such don't show up in the paper as well.

i disagree that photographing is a wasted process, i have seen the results and it works.

I have photographed lots of drawings to slides using the setup you described, beta, but I found that, almost without exception, I ended up scanning the slides.

It may depend on how fine your drawings are, too. I often had very fine pencil hatching, which reproduces very poorly in a photograph; or heavy black pencil, which reflects the lights and gives big shiny highlights.

If you need to save money, your drawings are of a certain type (ink line drawings, say), and you don't need high resolution, then photography is fine.

If you need to photograph and can't scan for one of the above mentioned reasons, the following are instruction for photographing artwork that may be useful for your drawings.

http://www.nitaleland.com/articles/photographing.htm

This page doesn't talk about shooting outside though (other than mentioning you could experiment with it). I've heard through other sources that shooting outside is recommended, but do it if you can on an overcast day. This diffuses the light making it cooler and less harsh-- maybe the same type of thing you are getting by photographing in the shade.

tungsten film is balanced for artificial light (indoors)...no need to use a tungsten lamp with tungsten film.
if you shoot with T film and a T lamp, your images are going to look too cool/cyan/blueish. if you are photographing with lamps/lights, use more than two, so that you don't create glare or hot spots on your images.

I've had good luck photographing drawings, even on crinkled paper, though a certain amount of digital manipulation is required. Digital cameras have almost eliminated the hassle of tungsten - even crappy fluorescent light can look good, if you've got your white balance set properly (and it can have the same diffusive effect noted above).

beta tungsten lights are yello very yellow, the tungsten film balances the light by using the contrary scale

so whites are white, blacks are truly black - not grey or sepia like with typical film

i knew there was something about the light and color, its been at least 10 years since i've photographed a drawing. i just knew the technique worked well.

you can always take that paper/ drawing into kinkos or a&e or some kinda print /copy shop ..it might be a little expensive but it beats the distortion on the camera. if u really want to use the camera. make sure ur not too close to the drawing and zoom a little. zooming in yet getting the entire picture in the frame will make the drawings look less distorted from the lens...IF that is ur concern, it was mine so im telling u :)