Epson 2400 - Almost perfect except...

[Marko]

I recently purchased several scanners to evaluate. Then I returned
them all except for the Epson 2400. It's almost perfect except for
two problems with the Epson supplied applets as follows:

Copy Center

This is the standard photocopy applet that you would expect for a
scanner. The problem with it is that it won't do bi-tonal copies. As
a result copying a printed document, and outputting to a laser
printer, results in a dithered image. The background white is gray
(represented on my laser printer as a pattern of black dots) and the
black print is dark gray (represented on my laser printer as
characters made of tiny checkerboard dots). There is apparently no
way to change this.

Reprint Photos

I selected this mode as a potential alternative to Copy Center
(described above). The problem is that the applet scrambles the image
on the way to the printer. (Actually it works with my color printer,
but scrambles the image on the way to my HP Laser printer.) It seems
to divide the page into four equal sized rows, then prints them in the
opposite order. Bizarre!

Tech Support

This is the other problem. I called them for a suggestion. They told
me that these problems couldn't be happening. Later they told me it
was because I was outputting to an HP laser printer. He said this is
like trying to put a Ford motor in a GM - it just won't work. I asked
for a supervisor - he didn't have one. OK, guess there is no point in
talking any further - have a nice day - goodby.

Anybody else run into these problems or have I entered the Twilight
Zone?

 

[John]

I purchased an Epson 3200 recently and have the same problem
with the gray background. My system is down so I'm going on
memory. I believe I put it in "automatic" mode and though it
did a pretty good job it was slow. When I used the "Copier"
my biggest issue was that it cut off the right and bottom side
of the paper.

What I ended up doing was to use Vuescan (I already had
a copy). It copied everything but still had a gray background.
I improved it by setting the white point to 55%. Not perfect
but the best I could come up with.

 

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?St=E9phane?=]

I've used Copy Center a long time ago and I've the same problem as you.
Don't remember exactly where is it, but try to find the option "enhanced
copy" or something like that. Not sure of the exact name of the option,
but it exists and works great.

Marko a écrit :

 

[DaveT]

This is the standard photocopy applet that you would expect for a
scanner. The problem with it is that it won't do bi-tonal copies. As
a result copying a printed document, and outputting to a laser
printer, results in a dithered image. The background white is gray
(represented on my laser printer as a pattern of black dots) and the
black print is dark gray (represented on my laser printer as
characters made of tiny checkerboard dots). There is apparently no
way to change this.

Anybody else run into these problems or have I entered the Twilight
Zone?

I and another recent poster have had similar Epson experiences. I
just acquired a 3200 which I assume has the same or a very similar
package. I was quite annoyed with the copier bit. There's a separate
selection for an original of "Text" -- why the heck don't they handle
that as 1 bit depth. (Perhaps it's a not too subtle way of selling
Epson printers?) I sent the copy output from a yellowed newspaper
clipping to my newly acquired Canon i960 and saw no dithering -- but
even the yellowed paper background reproduced, in spite of selecting B
& W text, it's apparently a multi-bit depth color image.

I'm running Win2K Pro which has something called "Imaging" under the
Accessories stuff. This is a fairly bare-bones image viewer/printer
that shows a Kodak logo as it comes up (it may be part of the Office
stuff). I can open that, ask to acquire an image and select the Epson
scanner. When the Epson Scan panel comes up, I pick something like
600 DPI, reflective, and scan. When that completes, it bounces back
to the imager and I can print the image, with no half-toning or
dithering, to my HP 4L. I think having to do a copy of text or line
drawings (probably 95% of most folk's copier needs) that way is
colossally stupid and inconvenient, but it's effective.

The scan panel program allows saving the scanner settings to a named
file, so I now have an instant config set up for B&W line copy.

DaveT

 

[Marko]

Thanks for comments.

I found a free photocopy utility called Potocopier 2.27 that seems to
do exactly what I want. It's available at:

http://dl.filekicker.com/send/file/135576-4834/cp.exe.

 

[Sam]

Tech Support

This is the other problem. I called them for a suggestion. They told
me that these problems couldn't be happening. Later they told me it
was because I was outputting to an HP laser printer. He said this is
like trying to put a Ford motor in a GM - it just won't work. I asked
for a supervisor - he didn't have one. OK, guess there is no point in
talking any further - have a nice day - goodby.

Anybody else run into these problems or have I entered the Twilight
Zone?

I recall reading in various forums that the 2400 copy function defaults
to use Epson printer drivers and may malfunction with other printer
brands. I can't remember what the fix was however.

Sam