Scanners

[thalbergmad]

Me scanner has started to produce some horrible results.

Looking at the before and after photoshop images of the same sheet, no matter what settings i use, i cannot get a clear scan.

Is this what normally happens when a scanner is about to die, or is there anything i can to do fix this?

If not, can anyone recommend a good quick A3 scanner, that is preferably NOT a Mustek.

Thal

[tanman]

 

btw I still haven't fixed my scanner 

[allthumbs]

Thal

I had a closer look at your scan. While I am not an expert, I have had some good results scanning. So before you toss out your scanner, here are some tips you may wish to consider.

First I would use the .tif format instead of .jpeg for b&w images. It seems to work better for a reason that I am unable to explain.

Also, I would use 300 dpi and not the 100 dpi that your scanner was set on. You'll get a much sharper image.

If you were getting better scans before, perhaps it is your scanner, but before you toss it out, check the following as well, in case some settings were changed.

You may already be doing this, so bear with me.

Use the 'Line Art' setting and not 'Colour' or 'Gray' setting. I also would use a low threshold setting or between 75-125 depending on how dark the paper is (brown with age).

I have attached a pdf of a raw untouched .tif file using the settings laid out here. The original .tif image used was much larger at 2544 X 3470 pixels, but smaller size 137kb than your file. The resulting pdf is smaller in size still. I couldn't attach the tif image by itself.

As for your image, this is what I did to improve your 'before' image in photoshop. I did get a slightly better result (attached).

1. On the task bar in photoshop click on Select, drop down to Color Range and click. The Color Range box will appear.

2. Select Highlights and click OK. This will cause the image to shimmer.

3. Go to Edit on the taskbar, click on Cut and it will clean up the image.

4. Go to Image on the taskbar, drop down to Adjust then click on Brightness/Contrast. A small box will appear. Leave the Brightness selection alone and shift the Contrast slider to the right until you feel the image is dark enough and click OK.

5. You can then crop the image by selecting the Rectangular Marquee Tool. Outline the area on the image you want to keep, go to Image on the Taskbar and click on Crop.

Save you image and you can do further cleanup touches and 'de-speckling'  in 'Paint'

I hope that helps and is clear as mud.


allthumbs

[thalbergmad]

Thanks for your response old chap.

My scanner produces bitmap images. I then convert them to jpegs as these tend to compress well and produce pdf's of reasonable size. Each page is generally about 1mb as a bitmap.

I have always used "grey scale" on my Mustek scanner as using the black and white settings tends to highlight the notes on a score and make the lines invisible. Using a higher resolution tends to highlight any imperfections on the paper, but i will try your suggestions on photoshop.

Looking at a few reports on the Mustek, the problems i am having do tend to happen after a while and i guess after 3 years and 18,000 pages i should not be moaning.

I am sure some of your suggestions would improve things, but i think that a new scanner that produces a better image in the first place is required. Due to the amount of old junk i scan, i try not to spend too much time tarting up the images.

Any suggestions on a good A3 scanner??

Regs

Thal

[thalbergmad]

These images that i produced only a week ago are more than satisfactory??

[allthumbs]

These images that i produced only a week ago are more than satisfactory??

These are much better. You could get slightly sharper images by increasing the dpi and I adjusted the contrast in the attached file.



allthumbs

[thalbergmad]

HAHA, i think i just send all my papers to you. That would be much easier.

Thal

[oxy60]

This has been a most intersting dialog. Even more so because I have never heard of Mustec. Here in the States and in Europe I use Epson printing and scanning equipment exclusively. I'm sure they make an A3.

[Bob]

What's A3?

[thalbergmad]

2 x A4

[gep]

2 x A4

2 x a 4 = a 8?

I think Alistair has a A3 scanner, and even has used a A2 scanner, so he may have pointers for you here?

Gep

[retrouvailles]

What's A3?

Why not just Wiki it instead of asking here? You'll get a quicker answer.

[Bob]

I have an idea, but I'm wondering how it relates to music.

It's a paper size I know.  But with music and scanners, I'm wondering.

[thalbergmad]

It don't relate to music.

I need an A3 scanner as sheet music used to be published oversize A4 or larger and many of the copies i get from libraries are A3 size.

My scanner is dead and i have a backlog of 25 concertos, so i had better get movin.

Thal