I could probably skip the whole scanning process if I could take better regular pictures than this:

"But the results are worth it!"

I'd be wary for quantitative-paleontology, but that looks pretty decent! I feel like scanning this way shortcuts a whole lot of stuff about photography and lighting that I never really figured out. You could hand me an expensive DSLR or whatever and I really couldn't get a better image than this, megapixels be damned. 

Fun fact, I used 2 Z heights and just flipped back and forth picking the good ones by hand.