Scanners?

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Ron Eggers

Ron Eggers

SPFG, Supreme Picture Framing God
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Jul 6, 2001
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Wisconsin
I scan a lot of old family photos. There seems to be an unlimited supply in my dad's house and some of the photos I've taken myself are becoming old family photos, except that they aren't holding up nearly as well as the ones taken in, say, 1912.

I've had a decent HP scanner for, I'll bet, five years or more and have been wondering if there are significant improvements in newer models. So I've been shopping.

The first thing I've noticed is that there aren't a lot of scanners at retail stores any more. There are a lot of multi-function machines out there and some dedicated Epson scanners and a few from Visioneer. But not much.

Any tips on what I should be looking for? I'm not looking for a drum scanner and I don't really care about spending $600 when I've been generally happy with the HP.
 
I’m still plodding away with a three year old Epson 836XL and a Nikon film/slide scanner.

I’m not in the market, so I can’t give you specifics, but some of the newer flat bed scanners will scan at 16 bits rather than 8. But unless you’re doing high end commercial work, IMHO, they are not worth the price or the hugh chunks of memory that they’ll eat up in your image editing software. And, older versions of Photoshop, for example, can’t handle 16 bits in some of the formats I’m accustomed to.

If you’re in the market, I would suggest you not try to combine a flat bed and slide scanner into one machine. They will end up doing a mediocre job of scanning both media.

I might suggest you try PC Magazine Online or MacWorld and search the archives for reviews. That might give you a pretty good starting point.
 
I have had some success with newegg.com for my purchases. Good prices and good service.
 
Ron,

I too have an older HP from 1998 that is really better quality than the newer (2005) HP Copier/Scanner/Color printer. I am not in the market but would be interested in what you find out in your search.

Roz
 
Stick to the one you are using until the light burns out. Beware of Visioneer. They will sell models that are not supported by current computers, (or that wouldn't be a problem with all of your old pc's) or they did. I have an hp3400C at home which does great for personal use. I also have the HP 1210 or there abouts, copies, scans and printer. It was a good price point at the time I needed a printer and makes good copies for general use. The scanner works fine but I don't think it is quite as good as just the scanner. Just one users opin.

Keep making copies of those old pictures.
 
When my old scanner's light went out, and the printer was making growling noises like a bad Dobbie with severe gas.... [which my computer tweekie told me that it was never ment to print 174,000 copies. . news to me.]

I bought the HP 7410 All-in-One and haven't regretted it because space is tight. One foot print and I get a flatbed scanner, copier, multi-sheet feed copier, fax and printer.

It also is a 5 card & USB reader, and bluetoothed so I can print from my laptop when I'm working on the table upstairs. [Now that can really freak the cat out :eek: ]
 
Ron,

If I remember right your into photography. Consider using a good digital camera on a copy stand. Much faster than scanning and the results can be vary good. Copy lights at a low angle can
de-accentuate texture, tears and silver bronzing that is common with old photos.

In the photolab we sometimes use a Canon Digital Rebel (6mp) with a Canon 50mm Maco Copy Lens. The results are very good.

Doug
 
Doug, I have done that very thing with my digital Rebel - especially when the original is too big to fit on the scanner bed. I still have my lights and copy stand from the olden days of restoration via airbrush. :eek:

(I didn't do the airbrushing, BTW.)
 
I have an HP 4C scanner in my office - it was an expensive, high end scanner in it's day and still does a good job scanning up to legal size.

I have added an Epson Perfection scanner to my Digital Workstation. It will scan up to 4800 x 9600 with a 3.4 dmax - terrific scans. It can scan film in 35mm, medium format, 4x5 and 8x10. It's fast. But the best part is the software. It has "Digital Ice" built in to eliminate dust, and many spots, it can also descreen images on copystop paper and from printed items. I'm very pleased with this scanner.

For the big ones I scan in pieces and reassemble using a panorama building program. I can scan a 20 x 24 image in 6 or 8 pieces and reassemble it for printing in about 10 minutes with great results. There are, however, a number of tricks to learn. This is far superior than copying with the digital camera.

I am shooting scenery with my Digital rebel using about 12 exposures and assembling the pieces into single images. By doing this I have an image which is 6 x 12 = 72 megapixels. The prints at 48 inches are super!
 
By the way, I also have 2 dedicated film scanners - an old Nikon which is OK but my favourite is a Canon F4000. Canon's software cleans better than the Nikon's "Digital Ice" and the Canon film holder holds 6 frames at a time. A film scan at 4000dpi with software cleaning takes 5-10 min per image and with the Canon I can put in 6 frames and get on with other work.
 
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