Book scanner info wanted (hi-rez scanning)

[Jon Noring]

Hello,

Hello,

I have two older books I'd like to scan. They are both black and
white, pretty much text only, with only one "grey-scale" image. The
page size for the larger book is 5.5"x8" (not that big).

My requirements may be a little bit unusual in that I want the scans
to be done to at least an optical resolution of 2400 ppi. The reason
is that I may want to, at a future time, produce a high-quality
facsimile print copy of the book using traditional offset printing
(the scans, suitably cleaned up, will be used to *directly* make
printing plates.)

(The 2400 ppi optical recommendation came from some experts answering
my queries to commercial book publishing forums. 3600 ppi optical will
be even better, but 2400 ppi appears adequate for making plates.)

One more constraint is that I prefer not to remove the binding to scan
these books, although they appear to lay pretty flat (but not
perfectly flat.)

So, what are my options? I don't want to pay an arm and a leg to
either buy the scanner, or to rent a service. Anyone in the Salt Lake
City area willing to help me, or to let me use your equipment?

Also, as an aside, what settings should I use? Should I simply scan at
2-bit, or do a full-color scan and process later?

Thanks!

Jon Noring

 

[Don]

The flat-bed scanners available in the consumer price range probably won't
do what you want. While many will scan at a dot density of 2400-3600 dpi,
they usually won't actually resolve more than about 1000 dpi. The principle
reasons for this are that there is no focus control, and the rigidity of the
scan mechanism is not adequate to keep vibration down to the levels required
for higher resolutions. I've heard of people hacking the optics to optimze
the focus, but I don't think even that will get you to 2400 dpi.

The only devices I know of that will do what you want are drum scanners, but
this would of course require that you remove each page from the binding.

There may be some commercial grade flatbed scanners of which I'm not aware,
of course.

Don

 

[Charlie]

Hello,

Hello,

I have two older books I'd like to scan. They are both black and
white, pretty much text only, with only one "grey-scale" image. The
page size for the larger book is 5.5"x8" (not that big).

My requirements may be a little bit unusual in that I want the scans
to be done to at least an optical resolution of 2400 ppi. The reason
is that I may want to, at a future time, produce a high-quality
facsimile print copy of the book using traditional offset printing
(the scans, suitably cleaned up, will be used to *directly* make
printing plates.)

(The 2400 ppi optical recommendation came from some experts answering
my queries to commercial book publishing forums. 3600 ppi optical will
be even better, but 2400 ppi appears adequate for making plates.)

One more constraint is that I prefer not to remove the binding to scan
these books, although they appear to lay pretty flat (but not
perfectly flat.)

So, what are my options? I don't want to pay an arm and a leg to
either buy the scanner, or to rent a service. Anyone in the Salt Lake
City area willing to help me, or to let me use your equipment?

Also, as an aside, what settings should I use? Should I simply scan at
2-bit, or do a full-color scan and process later?

Thanks!

Jon Noring

I'd say your "experts" are wrong. 2400 may be "adequate for making
plates", but that recommendation would only apply if the original were
of 2400 ppi resolution. Your existing book is far below that. Scan at
600 ppi 2bit and you should get everything that's on the printed
page.... or if you need or want grayscale, scan at 600 grayscale, then
reduce to 300 after cleaning up the images.

Now getting an undistorted scan image without removing the binding is
another problem. In a similar project, I scanned a similar size book
on my old flat-bed Microtek E6, and after adjusting the images in
Photoshop, got a very reasonable PDF file out of it. Our family
association will have the CD containing the book file on sale next
Labor Day. See the address in my sig for more information as we get
closer to Labor Day.

Charlie Hoffpauir
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~charlieh/

 

[Al]

Hello,

Hello,

I have two older books I'd like to scan. They are both black and
white, pretty much text only, with only one "grey-scale" image. The
page size for the larger book is 5.5"x8" (not that big).

My requirements may be a little bit unusual in that I want the scans
to be done to at least an optical resolution of 2400 ppi. The reason
is that I may want to, at a future time, produce a high-quality
facsimile print copy of the book using traditional offset printing
(the scans, suitably cleaned up, will be used to *directly* make
printing plates.)

(The 2400 ppi optical recommendation came from some experts answering
my queries to commercial book publishing forums. 3600 ppi optical will
be even better, but 2400 ppi appears adequate for making plates.)

One more constraint is that I prefer not to remove the binding to scan
these books, although they appear to lay pretty flat (but not
perfectly flat.)

So, what are my options? I don't want to pay an arm and a leg to
either buy the scanner, or to rent a service. Anyone in the Salt Lake
City area willing to help me, or to let me use your equipment?

Also, as an aside, what settings should I use? Should I simply scan at
2-bit, or do a full-color scan and process later?

Thanks!

Jon Noring

Take a look at the Microtek 6000. It has a rated optical resolution of
3200 PPI and sells for about $92.

I would suggest saving the images as 8 bit compressed TIFF files. Text
compresses very well and the files won't be that much bigger than if
they were saved in fewer monochrome bits. By doing this you will be
able to adjust the sharpness and define the edges of the fonts by
adjusting the white and black points in the future. Even digital
signatures use 4 bit grayscale because there is usually a gray area
around the edges of a seemingly pure B&W work.

 

[Scott]

What about using the Konica Minolta PS3000 or the PS7000 publication
scanner.

http://kmbs.konicaminolta.us/eprise...9986300101?info=Overview&Category=Service&PC=

Scott

 

[lostinspace]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jon Noring" <>
Newsgroups: comp.periphs.scanners
Sent: Sunday, June 20, 2004 11:22 PM
Subject: Book scanner info wanted (hi-rez scanning)

Hello,

Hello,

I have two older books I'd like to scan. They are both black and
white, pretty much text only, with only one "grey-scale" image. The
page size for the larger book is 5.5"x8" (not that big).

My requirements may be a little bit unusual in that I want the scans
to be done to at least an optical resolution of 2400 ppi. The reason
is that I may want to, at a future time, produce a high-quality
facsimile print copy of the book using traditional offset printing
(the scans, suitably cleaned up, will be used to *directly* make
printing plates.)

(The 2400 ppi optical recommendation came from some experts answering
my queries to commercial book publishing forums. 3600 ppi optical will
be even better, but 2400 ppi appears adequate for making plates.)

One more constraint is that I prefer not to remove the binding to scan
these books, although they appear to lay pretty flat (but not
perfectly flat.)

So, what are my options? I don't want to pay an arm and a leg to
either buy the scanner, or to rent a service. Anyone in the Salt Lake
City area willing to help me, or to let me use your equipment?

Also, as an aside, what settings should I use? Should I simply scan at
2-bit, or do a full-color scan and process later?

Thanks!

Jon Noring

Somebody provided this URL a while book in regards to open book scanning.
http://www.imageware.de/wf_content.php/100.html

I have scanned and continue to scan many old books and more especially
magazines.
IMO, your expecting far too much to get a 2400ppi plate quality scan from an
older book?
The paper, printers and ink methods used in older publications is NOT
comparable to today's methods and quality.

If your desire is just photo copies (rather than OCR and complete
digitization,) with quality printing than Acrobat PDF's are a solid
alternative. Acrobat does wonders at scanning text (because it's actually an
image,) while retaining off font sizes and formatting. Even in the line-art
option of your scanner.

As far as retaining the condition of the book your scanning from?
IMO, a better solution is to search the used online book stores for a 2nd
copy in which the bindings and cover are already in bad condition or perhaps
even coming apart. In most instances these type of items may be purchased
very cheaply as compared to the cost of a book in which you desire to
preserve the overall condition.

I have a 1903 book which I bought exclusively for scanning and took the
bindings off, it was much easier to scan.
Another alternative is to see if some text that you desire has already been
preserved?
Cornell has quite a bit online in a Making of America section:
http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/moa/
I've read where the UK is more diverse than the US in digitizing these
things.
Many public library systems in the states have also gone to resident only
items. for their expanded archives and preservation.

The Library of Congress has a very extensive American Memory section (beyond
the comprehension of most) http://memory.loc.gov/

There is also a national effort culminating to digitize the nationally
stored microfilm into one large "index". When this gets accomplished a lot
of data drawers are going to get opened as people begin digitizing that
microfilm. (In 2002 five states for lack of budget and commitment were
holding up the entire national process, my home state one of those.)

In summary, there is no general rule in quality of scans. I've seen older
paper and printing methods vary greatly from week-to-week or month-to-month
in publications making some scanning and OCR a nightmare.
I have some quality copies of four column newspaper print from the late
1800's of one publication that will not scan at all. Another publication
from the same period scans with remarkable quality.
Each NEW job is a new task and working method.

 

[Jon Noring]

Jon Noring wrote:

IMO, your expecting far too much to get a 2400ppi plate quality scan
from an older book? The paper, printers and ink methods used in
older publications is NOT comparable to today's methods and quality.

This book dates from 1940 (and going through the process of securing
permission -- it does look like the copyright was renewed), and it is
of *excellent* typeset and printing quality.

In addition, this book is a classic about typography, with the book
itself typeset specific to the book's recommendations. If any 20th
century book is best reprinted in facsimile form, this is certainly
one of the few.

Regarding 2400 dpi, I did some trial scans at 600 dpi optical, and
there was a clear degradation in quality of reproduction of the text.
This apparently occurs since a pixel has finite width and must either
be black or white (assuming 2-bit b/w), even if the center of the
pixel lies on the boundary between the black letter and the white of
the paper -- this is what I saw at 600 dpi -- jagged edges which will
affect the reproduced letter quality -- the effect on the serifs was
even more pronounced. One must go to a significantly higher rez.

(The plate processes are at 2400 or 3600 dpi or so, so they have high
resolution capability in making plates.)

As far as retaining the condition of the book your scanning from?
IMO, a better solution is to search the used online book stores for
a 2nd copy in which the bindings and cover are already in bad
condition or perhaps even coming apart. In most instances these type
of items may be purchased very cheaply as compared to the cost of a
book in which you desire to preserve the overall condition.

This I thought of, but it is a hard-to-find book (Bill Hill at
Microsoft, who highly recommended this book, spent a few years looking
for a copy). The copy I do have on loan from a university library does
have the binding coming apart, but it is not my book to rip apart.

Another alternative is to see if some text that you desire has
already been preserved?

I have close ties to Project Gutenberg. <smile/> I know what's out
there.

Cornell has quite a bit online in a Making of America section:
http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/moa/

I'm quite familiar with MOA, having written about it for the last few
years on the Ebook Community forum. A few years ago they were cutting
edge and pointed the way towards how to properly digitize texts.

In summary, there is no general rule in quality of scans. I've seen
older paper and printing methods vary greatly from week-to-week or
month-to-month in publications making some scanning and OCR a
nightmare.

As I've said, these particular books are special cases:

1) They should be reprinted exactly as they are now (facsimile).

2) They are of very high print quality (helping facsimile printing).

3) They also need to be digitized for online viewing, and also
converted to electronic text, probably TEI-Lite marked up XML (as
Distributed Proofreaders is moving towards.)

This points to no ordinary scanning for these (the scans must also be
used for facsimile printing.) It's been mentioned that the best
resolution one can *effectively* achieve with the common flatbed
scanners is about 1000 ppi (even if they advertise a much higher
optical resolution), which does not appear to be quite good enough for
high-quality facsimile prints. It was mentioned as an alternative to
use a drum scanner (which I know nothing about) to get true 2400 ppi
but this requires I rip the book apart, which I may inquire on doing
(so long as I rebind it at my expense -- the binding is very plain.)

So, anyone here willing to volunteer their drum scanner for these
two books?

Thanks!

Jon Noring

 

[Mendel Leisk]

Take a look at the Microtek 6000. It has a rated optical resolution of
3200 PPI and sells for about $92.

I would suggest saving the images as 8 bit compressed TIFF files. Text
compresses very well and the files won't be that much bigger than if
they were saved in fewer monochrome bits. By doing this you will be
able to adjust the sharpness and define the edges of the fonts by
adjusting the white and black points in the future. Even digital
signatures use 4 bit grayscale because there is usually a gray area
around the edges of a seemingly pure B&W work.

If you're going through the exercise of turning each page and
scanning, and considering there is next to no illustrations, just pure
text, why don't you consider an OCR program. Your file size will be
much smaller in text format, and at the end of the day you will have a
searchable, dynamic text file.

 

[Jon Noring]

If you're going through the exercise of turning each page and
scanning, and considering there is next to no illustrations, just pure
text, why don't you consider an OCR program. Your file size will be
much smaller in text format, and at the end of the day you will have a
searchable, dynamic text file.

I already explained in another message that I want to do *both*.

These two books deal with typography, and there is a lot of fine
typographic detail in the illustrations (essentially typeset passages)
which needs to be preserved in high resolution. Plus, the typesetting
of the books themselves illustrate the typographic principles they are
trying to teach -- they even say "this book is typeset with ...".

Thus, being able to scan at high enough resolution so as to produce
a facsimile print edition of each book (plates will be made from the
hi-rez scans), is certainly an attractive option. One can OCR these
scans, or simply resample to a lower resolution for OCR'ing.

Jon Noring

 

[Jon Noring]

The flat-bed scanners available in the consumer price range probably
won't do what you want. While many will scan at a dot density of
2400-3600 dpi, they usually won't actually resolve more than about
1000 dpi. The principle reasons for this are that there is no focus
control, and the rigidity of the scan mechanism is not adequate to
keep vibration down to the levels required for higher resolutions.
I've heard of people hacking the optics to optimze the focus, but I
don't think even that will get you to 2400 dpi.

The only devices I know of that will do what you want are drum
scanners, but this would of course require that you remove each page
from the binding.

There may be some commercial grade flatbed scanners of which I'm not
aware, of course.

Regarding drum scanners, can someone fill me in about them? (An open-
ended request for information -- who makes them, which are
recommended, how common they are, how expensive, etc., etc.)

Obviously, I'm hoping to find someone who can do the drum scans for me
at the very high resolution needed, or allow me to use their
equipment. But first I need to know about them.

As Don also mentioned, there may be flatbed scanners which have true
2400 dpi capability (reread his message above.) Any recommendations?

Thanks!

Jon Noring

 

[lostinspace]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jon Noring" <>
Newsgroups: comp.periphs.scanners
Sent: Tuesday, June 22, 2004 5:28 PM
Subject: Drum Scanners? True hi-rez flatbed scanners? (was Re: Book scanner
info wanted)

Regarding drum scanners, can someone fill me in about them? (An open-
ended request for information -- who makes them, which are
recommended, how common they are, how expensive, etc., etc.)

Obviously, I'm hoping to find someone who can do the drum scans for me
at the very high resolution needed, or allow me to use their
equipment. But first I need to know about them.

As Don also mentioned, there may be flatbed scanners which have true
2400 dpi capability (reread his message above.) Any recommendations?

Thanks!

Jon Noring

Some decent explanation and comparing of images
http://www.marginalsoftware.com/Scanner/Scanner_Intro.htm
the above the result of a simle google on drum scanners
http://google.netscape.com/search?q=drum+scanners&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&btnG=Google+Search

The USTA (trotting not tennis) Photo Department has a drum scanner. Whether
it's capabilities suit your needs and whether they would be willing to
contract? I haven't a clue.
They do use it daily for scanning photo's. Although I can't imagine their
machine has been overworked.

I'm sure their are commercial companies which utilize drum scanners.
( With a few web searches and telephone inquiries, I was able to find
somebody to duplicate 40X microfiche, although the 4,000 plus sheets I
desired would have cost 50k, I did do a test copy.