CCoyote said:
@AlexYorim I think @Mairo does bring up something worthwhile here, and thanks for that, Mairo -- there are some cell phones (not the cheap ones) that take adequate photos for the kind of post-processing I do. I use a DSLR because I'm also into photography, but if you have a really high-end iPhone, Galaxy, or Pixel, give those a try and see if they work. Just remember to take time to fix things like keystone and color corrections. :-)

Higher end models do allow more fine tuning and even shooting into RAW files which are insanely much better (the quality compared to saved JPG is actually pretty insane in some cases with my phone, but too lazy to enable it for casual photos) and with proper post processing I could see them being acceptable.

But at the same time, buying over 500€ phone just to take photographs of your artwork is not exactly the brightest idea.

AlexYorim said:
Thanks for the tip.

Next question: Which scanner is more investable? Standalone flatbeds or the printer/scanner combos?

Depents on what you need.

Printer/Scanners are usually much cheaper as they move much faster from stores, but at the same time they are generally limited to A4 and 600 DPI with features more suited to document scanning. They are definitely useable still and most cheapest and easiest way to get best digitizations from physical medium. Flatbeds can be much larger and have much more precise scanning, but comes with premium cost. I do actually have couple scans from physically low size artwork taken with extremely premium scanner and it's kinda insane to be able to see papers texture in HD, with all the individual strands showing. Of course this is at the level that's not demanded from e621, but if you are doing a lot of traditional artwork, I do not see reason not to invest in higher end model at that point if the financial situation allows that.