Scanning for Newbie

[JD]

I am trying to scan some textbooks. Using a Visioneer 8900 with
Paperport 7. The scans look great (on my monitor) at most resolutions
but I have used 600 dpi in PaperPort. The problem is when I print them
they are of low quality. I would like the scans when printed to be near
photocopy quality. To print I use an HP Laser 1200 (max resolution
600dpi). I have tried converting the Paperport files to Adobe PDF first
and get the same poor results. Can someone post some simple tips on how
to do this or is my hardware simply not good enough for what I wnat to
accomplish?

 

[CSM1]

I am trying to scan some textbooks. Using a Visioneer 8900 with
Paperport 7. The scans look great (on my monitor) at most resolutions
but I have used 600 dpi in PaperPort. The problem is when I print them
they are of low quality. I would like the scans when printed to be near
photocopy quality. To print I use an HP Laser 1200 (max resolution
600dpi). I have tried converting the Paperport files to Adobe PDF first
and get the same poor results. Can someone post some simple tips on how
to do this or is my hardware simply not good enough for what I wnat to
accomplish?

To learn more about scanning go to:
http://www.scantips.com

Scanning and printing is a learned art. The basic idea is scan at 300 to 600
dpi, depending on the document.
If you want the most from just text (black print on white paper), scan using
the B&W (text) mode of the scanner, adjust the threshold as needed to get
the blackest black without the spots of dirt.

Printing is usually done at around 300 dpi.
What you see on your screen is not what you get when you print. Your screen
is only pixels and has an apparent resolution of 72 to 96 DPI. Your printer
needs 150 dpi and up to get a good result.

Pixels is what counts, don't get hung up on the DPI.
DPI is only important when you scan and when you print.

 

[Charlie]

I am trying to scan some textbooks. Using a Visioneer 8900 with
Paperport 7. The scans look great (on my monitor) at most resolutions
but I have used 600 dpi in PaperPort. The problem is when I print them
they are of low quality. I would like the scans when printed to be near
photocopy quality. To print I use an HP Laser 1200 (max resolution
600dpi). I have tried converting the Paperport files to Adobe PDF first
and get the same poor results. Can someone post some simple tips on how
to do this or is my hardware simply not good enough for what I wnat to
accomplish?

Well, here's what I did when I recently scanned a book for a CD that
our genealogy association sold...


I scanned each page at 300 ppi grayscale, and saved each scan as an
uncompressed TIFF file. Each scanned page was then a tif file of about
8 MB. I then opened each image in Photoshop, and adjusted the image to
make the lines exactly horizontal, then cropped to the overall final
size I wanted. Then adjusted the grayscale channel White Point to
remove dark smudges on the background, and Black point to make the
print as dark as possible. Then, for all pages with text only, I
converted the image to Photoshop's Bitmap mode (black and white), and
saved to a different folder. This resulted in a 1 to 1.1 MB tif file.
Pages with Photographs I left as grayscale. At this point you could
make a great looking printed copy of the file, but since I was aiming
for a CD, I then imported each page into Adobe Acrobat, and saved the
resulting 100+ pages as a PDF file. The entire 138 page book is 168MB
in size in PDF form, vs about 1.2 GB as grayscale. I compared printed
copies of the smaller PDF against printed copies from the grayscale
corrected scans, and you can't tell the difference without using a
magnifier. (My printer is also an HP 1200, and that printer's specs
say it will print at 1200, but I also printed the test prints at 600)
Charlie Hoffpauir
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~charlieh/

 

[JD]

I tried the B&W but problem is when printing some of the smaller text
doesnt even show up!


Charlie, will the trial version of Photoshop work the same in
retouching the scans so they are visually more acceptable?

 

[JD]

bump

 

[Charlie]

I tried the B&W but problem is when printing some of the smaller text
doesnt even show up!


Charlie, will the trial version of Photoshop work the same in
retouching the scans so they are visually more acceptable?

I have no knowledge about the trial version. But I would think any
photo editor would perform a similar operation.
Charlie Hoffpauir
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~charlieh/