Although this is certainly elementary, I thought I'd share it since it may help someone in a pinch; here is my simple technique to create a preliminary schematic from a populated 1 or 2 sided pcb:
Michael Grigoni described his method of PCB reverse engineering
I used a similar method: taking a picture of the trace side, editing it, flipping and possibly superimposing a photo of the component side. I then use a circuit drawing program such as Dia (it's native on Linux but has been ported to Windows, too:
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to draw the schematics overlaid on the background image.
Because the diagram program maintains the connectivity when elements are moved around, I can rearrange and straighten up the topology of the schematics, rats-nest like. If one could import background into a proper PCB design program such as Eagle, one should be able to get back the PCB.
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