Name: Anonymous 2007-07-21 20:47 ID:TT9LbYQq
In this thread, compare scanners.
I have 4 old scanners,
Epson 1200U
Logitech Pagescan
Visioneer Strobe Pro
Microtek X6.
The Epson is pretty fast. For a 8.5x11 B&W 300dpi, it's about 6 seconds. It doesn't keep me waiting much if I'm scanning document pages. For photos, the brightness and contrast settings can be tricky. What works for one picture may fail for the next. There's an auto setting button that helps in some cases. But it's nearly impossible to get the scan to look exactly like the picture. It'll be a little sharper or blurrier or brighter or dimmer or somesuch.
The Microtek is sssllloooowwwww. Totally unfeasible for a stack of documents. But for a single photo, the driver has a lot of detailed settings. I wouldn't say they're better than the Epson's settings. I'm trying to get an IT-8 color target sheet because there's color calibration software from Microtek. If that doesn't make color accuracy easier than manually adjusting the settings, I may chuck the Microtek.
The Logitech is good for newspaper articles because it has a detachable head with wheels so you can let it roll across an article. A regular sheet-fed would make me scan the whole length of the page. A flatbed would require me to line up the top of the article with the edge of the glass; less convenient than rolling the bar shaped Logitech across part of the paper. Attached to its base it's a sheet-fed. It can jam like any sheet-fed, but you clear the jam by detaching the head. Very good solution for that problem. Also, a sheet-fed can get a speck of dust in the wrong place that causes streaks in the scan. The detachable Logitech makes the glass accessible for cleaning.
The Visioneer is the fastest solution for a stack of document pages. It can finish a page before I have the next one ready to feed into it. But jams are a bad problem since the eject button doesn't do anything, and thin paper fools the light sensor into thinking the page has fed through when it's really ony half through. Cleaning requires disassembly with a screwdriver. Color photo scans don't compete with flatbed quality.
Next, I'd like to get a model that gets a photo's colors right without manual color adjustment. I would bet a Canon does that best.
I have 4 old scanners,
Epson 1200U
Logitech Pagescan
Visioneer Strobe Pro
Microtek X6.
The Epson is pretty fast. For a 8.5x11 B&W 300dpi, it's about 6 seconds. It doesn't keep me waiting much if I'm scanning document pages. For photos, the brightness and contrast settings can be tricky. What works for one picture may fail for the next. There's an auto setting button that helps in some cases. But it's nearly impossible to get the scan to look exactly like the picture. It'll be a little sharper or blurrier or brighter or dimmer or somesuch.
The Microtek is sssllloooowwwww. Totally unfeasible for a stack of documents. But for a single photo, the driver has a lot of detailed settings. I wouldn't say they're better than the Epson's settings. I'm trying to get an IT-8 color target sheet because there's color calibration software from Microtek. If that doesn't make color accuracy easier than manually adjusting the settings, I may chuck the Microtek.
The Logitech is good for newspaper articles because it has a detachable head with wheels so you can let it roll across an article. A regular sheet-fed would make me scan the whole length of the page. A flatbed would require me to line up the top of the article with the edge of the glass; less convenient than rolling the bar shaped Logitech across part of the paper. Attached to its base it's a sheet-fed. It can jam like any sheet-fed, but you clear the jam by detaching the head. Very good solution for that problem. Also, a sheet-fed can get a speck of dust in the wrong place that causes streaks in the scan. The detachable Logitech makes the glass accessible for cleaning.
The Visioneer is the fastest solution for a stack of document pages. It can finish a page before I have the next one ready to feed into it. But jams are a bad problem since the eject button doesn't do anything, and thin paper fools the light sensor into thinking the page has fed through when it's really ony half through. Cleaning requires disassembly with a screwdriver. Color photo scans don't compete with flatbed quality.
Next, I'd like to get a model that gets a photo's colors right without manual color adjustment. I would bet a Canon does that best.