ooh! that looks nice!

large format scanner: expensive?
see-through scanner: You still have to scan separate images and try to align them up manually in photoshop.

I like this mouse because it's small, affordable ($199), and it seems to auto mesh large areas together on it's own.

Maybe there's a trick in newer versions of photoshop I'm not aware of, but again.. photoshop CS4 aint cheap (certainly not less than $200?)

cheapest price I found is $135, not sure what shipping would be from UK?
http://www.airetechit.co.uk/e-shop/int/ROW/products.php?34574&currency=USD&livemode=1

You can still find Hp4600's on ebay for about $30-$50, and seems to still be the cheapest most effective way to do at home. Keep in mind because the scanner is so old, it only works well in XP. If you need to run it in windows 7/8, read this workaround:
https://openpinballproject.wordpress.com/2014/10/

Highly recommend if you're stitching, do NOT start in photoshop. Use a free program by microsoft called "ICE". Stitch only one row at a time, then take all the rows and stitch them. This will reduce the warping that stitching tends to do. You may have to tweak the image ever so slightly (scanners are accurate, but they may be off by 1/8"), so you'll have to stretch the image accordingly.

I wished I had grabbed those before it went down. Whatever happened to Planetary pinball selling overlays? All I see is classic arcades selling a few on ebay.

me too, vista drivers work fine