Systems and methods for glare removal using polarized filtering in document scanning

A method for scanning documents, comprising:

• providing a lighting unit for illuminating a document, the lighting unit comprising:
• a first light illuminating the document from a first direction;
• and
• a second light concurrently illuminating the document from a second direction distinct from the first direction, wherein the first light and the second light are oriented such that light from one of the first light and the second light reflects toward a camera and light from the other of the first light and the second light reflects away from the camera;
• attaching a lighting unit polarizer to one of the first and second lights of the lighting unit to polarize light from the one of the first and second lights of the lighting unit;
• attaching a camera polarizer to the camera for capturing an image of the document;
• rotating at least one of the lighting unit polarizer and the camera polarizer to optimize reduction of reflection causing glare off of the document resulting from the lighting unit;
• and
• supporting the document in a fixed position relative to the camera to orient one of a plurality of pages of the document relative to the camera.

A method for reducing glare in imaging documents, comprising:

• attaching a lighting source polarizer to a lighting source to polarize light from the lighting source, the lighting source to illuminate a document to be imaged, wherein the lighting unit comprises:
• a first light illuminating the document from a first direction;
• and
• a second light concurrently illuminating the document from a second direction distinct from the first direction, wherein the first light and the second light are oriented such that light from one of the first light and the second light reflects toward a camera and light from the other of the first light and the second light reflects away from the camera, and wherein the lighting source polarizer is attached to one of the first and second lights of the lighting unit;
• attaching a camera polarizer to the camera for imaging pages of the document, the camera polarizer and the lighting source polarizer being oriented relative to each other so as to facilitate filtering of reflections causing glare off of the document resulting from the corresponding lighting source at the camera;
• and
• supporting the document in a fixed position relative to the camera to orient one of a plurality of pages of the document relative to the camera.