full 8.5 x 11 useable platen question

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B

BT

I need to scan a bunch of art pieces for book reproduction. They are on
8.5 x 11 sheets. I can't afford a tabloid-sized scanner (at least I'm
not aware of any in the under-$500 range), so I'm wondering whether some
scanners are better than others at picking up the margins of an 8 1/2 x
11 sheet.

Any info or advice will be appreciated.
 
BT said:
I need to scan a bunch of art pieces for book reproduction. They are on
8.5 x 11 sheets. I can't afford a tabloid-sized scanner (at least I'm
not aware of any in the under-$500 range), so I'm wondering whether some
scanners are better than others at picking up the margins of an 8 1/2 x
11 sheet.

Any info or advice will be appreciated.
Click to expand...

I do not know of any problems of scanning the full 8 1/2 inch by 11 inch on
any of today's flatbed scanners. You set the size you want to scan and then
scan.

There are scanners in the $50 price range that will scan a 8 1/2 inch by 11
inch piece of paper.

If you are talking about a transparency, then that is a big problem. There
are no 8 1/2 X 11 inch transparency scanners for less than $400. Most of
them are no more than 4 x 5 inches.
 
Thanks for the reply.

I may not have been clear in my question: ideally, I want a scan that
actually shows the edges of the 8 1/2 x 11 sheet; in other words, a scan
where a small margin of white space is visible between the edge of the
page and the edge of the resulting scan.
 
You would have to pay close attention to the scanner spec on the scanning
area.

Most (all) Letter or A4 size scanners scan the full 8 1/2 x 11 inches. A4 is
210 mm x 297 mm which is 8.2677 inches x 11.6929 inches, so you can get the
edge of the paper in the long dimension. If the scanner will scan the full
length of the scanner bed.

If you want a border to show after the scan, you may have to add the border
after scanning.

An example of my AcerScan flatbed scanner's Max scan area.
http://www.carlmcmillan.com/Temp

There is one scan and two examples of border and cropping of the same scan.

I do not leave "stuff" in this site very long.
 
The biggest problem in reaching the outer limits of 8.5 x 11 is the
contamination of outside light. If this is a problem you can resolve
it most of the time by placing either a larger sheet of paper (tabloid
sized) or a dark sheet of fabric over the art and then placing the lid
down ontop. The paper or cloth just acts as an added gasket
preventing contamination of outside light.

Buy a quality name. Don't get too cheap! Read all the reviews you
can find. PCWorld is doing reviews of scanners but they are not your
only source for information. Narrow your selections down and then try
seach for them here at google to see what people are saying.

Good luck
 
Thanks for the info. I guess I'll just try my luck with an 8.5 x 11.7
scanner, even if it turns out that the items need to be professionally
rescanned for publication. I need something on my desktop to lay things
out, prepare proposals, etc., and my umax 1200s is getting pretty tired
(and by no means does it produce publishable scans, though it's fine for
web images).

I'm leaning toward an Epson 3170... seem reasonable?
 
Thanks for the info. I guess I'll just try my luck with an 8.5 x 11.7
scanner, even if it turns out that the items need to be professionally
rescanned for publication. I need something on my desktop to lay things
out, prepare proposals, etc., and my umax 1200s is getting pretty tired
(and by no means does it produce publishable scans, though it's fine for
web images).

I'm leaning toward an Epson 3170... seem reasonable?
Click to expand...
========
Just about any ol' flatbed will make "publishable scans" from flat copy.
Your Umax1200 model is 600ppi and 30bit, which exceeds any info (scanned
at actual size, anyway) from any flat copy you can throw at it. A $10K+
drum scanner won't resolve any more.

Unless your scanner has developed some sort of abberation?

Mac
 
Mac McDougald said:
========
Just about any ol' flatbed will make "publishable scans" from flat copy.
Your Umax1200 model is 600ppi and 30bit, which exceeds any info (scanned
at actual size, anyway) from any flat copy you can throw at it. A $10K+
drum scanner won't resolve any more.

Unless your scanner has developed some sort of abberation?

Mac
Click to expand...

Thanks for your reply.

Abberation or not, the level of detail and capture of subtle colors on
the Umax is clearly less than when I've scanned the same thing on a
high-grade flatbed (such as an Epson XL "graphic arts" scanner... I
don't recall the model number). A bit of misalignment between the r g
and b channels is also evident with the Umax. (Plus it's slow and has no
native drivers for Mac OS X, which is what I use.) The bottom line is
that while the Umax scans are ok for the web and casual desktop
printing, there is no way that a scan from the Umax could get the most
out of an image that's going to be printed in a well-produced book or
magazine, even if the file is printed at 300 dpi or less. I suspect
that the Epson 3170 may not be fully adequate to the task, either, but I
hope it will at least make my desktop scanner use a little less
frustrating.
 
I hope my previous post doesn't seem dismissive of you comments--I'm
just reporting my experience. If there are ways to tweak this Umax 1200
into yeilding professional-quality scans, I'd love to know about it!
(I'm using "Vuescan" software with it, by the way.
 
I hope my previous post doesn't seem dismissive of you comments--I'm
just reporting my experience.
Click to expand...

No, not at all...
If there are ways to tweak this Umax 1200
into yeilding professional-quality scans, I'd love to know about it!
(I'm using "Vuescan" software with it, by the way.
Click to expand...

Just sounds to me as if that puppy is not up to spec anymore, if it ever
was.

My comment was really just to indicate that just about any brand name
scanner (CCD model, anyway) made today would probably change your mind,
even compared to the "high end" one you mention.

Buy an Epson 3200 or successor, and I doubt if you could tell the diff
between scan from it and any other commercially made scan, even for
coffeetable book type publishing (again, assuming you are scanning from
flat copy of whatever kind). Plus, though this feature won't achieve same
as dedicated film scanner, these will also give you film scanning
capability, at least for pedestrian purposes, and actually quite good
results on larger film sizes.

Mac
 
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