Scanner w/Software & ADF

[Rain2Fall]

I'm looking to buy a new scanner. Some scanners come with software
bundles. II already ahve Photoshop 7.0 and FineReader. I don't need
OCR or photo editing.

I use the scanner for documents. I also scan ancient, decrepit old
family photos and fix them up. I also scan photos from books and, god
forrbid, old yellowed newspapers, and fix them up.

I need software that will get past the half-toning or moire. Is there
any software that can fix scratches and dust without messing up the
image?

I also want an automatic document feeder.

My price range is under $500. I'm wary of HP products because I've had
such trouble with their drivers over the years. I'm using Win XP.

Recommendations? Warnings?

Rain

 

[CSM1]

I'm looking to buy a new scanner. Some scanners come with software
bundles. II already ahve Photoshop 7.0 and FineReader. I don't need
OCR or photo editing.

I use the scanner for documents. I also scan ancient, decrepit old
family photos and fix them up. I also scan photos from books and, god
forrbid, old yellowed newspapers, and fix them up.

I need software that will get past the half-toning or moiré. Is there
any software that can fix scratches and dust without messing up the
image?

I also want an automatic document feeder.

My price range is under $500. I'm wary of HP products because I've had
such trouble with their drivers over the years. I'm using Win XP.

Recommendations? Warnings?

Rain

You are smart to stay away from HP products. They are not the quality that
they once were.

Your requirements can be met with even the lowest priced scanner today.
Except for the ADF.

I need software that will get past the half-toning or moiré. Is there
any software that can fix scratches and dust without messing up the
image?

Read Scantips.com's pages on descreening.
http://www.scantips.com/basics06.html

You may be interested in his Manual method.
http://www.scantips.com/basics6c.html

Scratch and dust removal needs an infrared channel to be effective.
Otherwise, you just blur the image to hide them. You can use the clone or
rubber stamp tool in Photoshop to remove dust spots, but that takes a lot of
work.

Check into Canon, Epson and Microtek products. (I own a Canon 8400F
scanner).
http://www.usa.canon.com/html/canonindex.html
http://www.epson.com
http://www.microtekusa.com/

 

[-]

I also scan ancient, decrepit old family photos and fix them up. I alsoI also want an automatic document feeder... Warnings?<<

Just realize that an ADF can be pretty hard on older materials like old
photos and newspapers.

Doug

 

[Clarence klopfstein]

Lexmark Scanners are pretty good. But they are All-In-Ones.

They generally have an ADF in the $250 range. They are a bit heavy on
using ink, but overall they are pretty good scanners. And they have
descreening as a feature.

ck
http://www.scanhelp.com
http://www.jetsoftdev.com

 

[Danny]

Carl, I'm really not trying to be a salesman... or even sound like one-
I'm a techie at heart- but, based on the gereal needs, the Fujitsu S500
really would be a perfect fit.

I should clarify the ideal scanning needs for the S500. It's a duplex
(single pass) ADF only scanner has a usb 2.0 interface/ backward
compatible to usb 1.1 if needed. The optics are capable of matching up
with the best scanners today with dual 600dpi true optical resolution
CCD's 24bit color output or monochrome.

Even though you have the software components such as photoshop and
Abbyy Finereader, the ability to stack the documents in the ADF and
press a single button to scan, clean up the image quality, OCR,
auto-crop to each page size, drop out blank sides of pages,
automatically detect and save color pages as color, encrypt 128bit with
password protection for sensitive documents at 18 ppm/36 ipm with the
push of a single button doesn't really happen until you see one live.

and I don't blame you or anyone else if you're skeptical since I work
for Fujitsu. (document image scanners have been the only subject of my
workday since 2001). Take a look at some of the reviews out there...
Macworld users as well as other userforums are good references/
feedback from users of all backgrounds.

I don't want to disolusion you at the same time. The ADF is still
mechanical and depends on friction to feed and seperate each document
in the stack. The ADF is capable if handling stacks of NCR (carbonless
copy paper to cardstock). The parts which contact the documents need to
be cleaned with rubbing alcohol usually every 3k pages (depending on
the paper quality/ toner condition) to avoid mispicks and double feeds.



The optics are like your everyday digital cameras. This scanner has 2-
one on the frontside and one in the door to scan the backsides of each
page. If heavy amounts of dust or other contaminents build up in front
of the 600dpi CCD's, you'll see lines resembling pencil lines going
down the document. Software Image Enhancing Algorythms can remove most
unwanted "background noise" but, if the line is dark enough, software
doesn't know the difference between that and a line on the document
which should be captured. If this happens, isopropyl alcohol on a cloth
to wipe off both glass/mylar optical surfaces in the ADF can be done in
less than 30 seconds.

The S500 is starter scanner to our other performance scanners which
cost about double the price of the S500. It's unlike any of our other
conventional document scanners in that there's no twain or isis
drivers. The output is pdf or jpeg if want. everything else is
automatic...

Hope this helps~

Danny