Microtek ScanMaker i900

  • Thread starter Thread starter Steve
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Steve

Is anyone familiar with this scanner?

I just purchased one. It seems to be very well made, but the inside lid is
black. I believe the black is bleeding through and throwing off scans of
most paper. Anyone familiar with this problem? Why make the inside lid
black? If I keep this, do I have to place additional objects on top of the
paper to keep the black from bleeding through?
 
I just purchased one. It seems to be very well made, but the inside lid is
black. I believe the black is bleeding through and throwing off scans of
most paper. Anyone familiar with this problem? Why make the inside lid
black? If I keep this, do I have to place additional objects on top of the
paper to keep the black from bleeding through?
Click to expand...

I feel it's a good idea: when the back is white and the paper is printed
both sides, you may have some shine-through effects of the back side.

When the back is black, you'll have slightly less light back, but you
will have black back writing on black back with much less contrast than
black on white. I'd expect less background effects with a black back.
 
Thank you Martin.

I do scan a lot of paper, though, most of which doesn't have writing on the
back. Am I stuck with always placing additional white material on top of it
to avoid the paper being scanned as gray, rather than white?

Steve
 
Thank you Martin.

I do scan a lot of paper, though, most of which doesn't have writing on the
back. Am I stuck with always placing additional white material on top of it
to avoid the paper being scanned as gray, rather than white?
Click to expand...

What's your OS and software? How 'bout changing to the professional mode
and adjusting both brightness and contrast in order to match your
requirements of this writing best?
 
I do scan a lot of paper, though, most of which doesn't have writing on the
back. Am I stuck with always placing additional white material on top of it
to avoid the paper being scanned as gray, rather than white?
Click to expand...


The black lid is designed intentionally for a good purpose, a good idea.

If you are scanning text documents, you probably should be scanning in line
art mode anyway,and then there is no gray. Assuming good quality
original documents, 600 dpi line art is appropriate to print a really good
copy of text. However line art is inapproprite to reproduce grayscale or
color of course.

If you must use grayscale or color mode scan mode, the a slightly lower
histogram White Point setting will eliminate any little color cast. To know
how much, you can see this correction on the preview before the scan.
 
Ah well. I was trying to avoid scanning to a large TIFF file and I can't
scan in line art mode to JPEG.

Thank you -- I appreciate your response.

Steve
 
Thank you Martin.

I do scan a lot of paper, though, most of which doesn't have writing on the
back. Am I stuck with always placing additional white material on top of it
to avoid the paper being scanned as gray, rather than white?

Steve
Click to expand...
If you're scanning in color or grayscale then the automatic exposure
control will reduce a plain white sheet of paper to what it considers
to be average or neutral gray. It will do this regardless of the color
of the object behind the paper you're scanning.

Either scan in black/white only (no gray) or adjust the gray to view
as white in an editor after the scan, or if settings are adjustable in
your scanner software, adjust for a white background.
 
Ah well. I was trying to avoid scanning to a large TIFF file and I can't
scan in line art mode to JPEG.
Click to expand...

Right, no JPG if line art, but that goal seems backwards anyway. I am
assuming we are discussing text documents, if otherwise then all bets are
off. TIFF is exactly what you want for line art. The 300 dpi line art image
in a TIF file with any kind of compression (LZW, G3, etc) will be a much
smaller file, and a very much more clear file, than any grayscale JPG file
can possibly be. Actually try it, and actually print it, and you'll be very
impressed. See http://www.scantips.com/basics04.html about use of the
lineart threshold control for best results in problem cases.

A full-page line art, 300 dpi, TIF file will be 1MB if you dont compress it.

But you can compress it, so do. Use any file compression you have for TIF.
Then LZW will probably be 150KB. G3 maybe 120KB, and G4 less than 90KB. Or
PaperPort MAX will be less than 90KB too, in this case. But if TIF and LZW
is all you have, or packbits, or whatever, then use it, compression works
really great for line art.

You'll do good to get a 150 dpi grayscale JPG under 500KB, and still have a
halfway decent image when you actually print it. The 300 dpi line art TIF
file with LZW will run circles around it, both quality and file size.

These approximate file size guesses are not very exact, it depends on the
image content (it could even be smaller). Blank line art black or white page
space compresses unbelieveably well.
 
Wayne, thank you!

Steve

Wayne Fulton said:
Right, no JPG if line art, but that goal seems backwards anyway. I am
assuming we are discussing text documents, if otherwise then all bets are
off. TIFF is exactly what you want for line art. The 300 dpi line art
image
in a TIF file with any kind of compression (LZW, G3, etc) will be a much
smaller file, and a very much more clear file, than any grayscale JPG file
can possibly be. Actually try it, and actually print it, and you'll be
very
impressed. See http://www.scantips.com/basics04.html about use of the
lineart threshold control for best results in problem cases.

A full-page line art, 300 dpi, TIF file will be 1MB if you dont compress
it.

But you can compress it, so do. Use any file compression you have for
TIF.
Then LZW will probably be 150KB. G3 maybe 120KB, and G4 less than 90KB.
Or
PaperPort MAX will be less than 90KB too, in this case. But if TIF and
LZW
is all you have, or packbits, or whatever, then use it, compression works
really great for line art.

You'll do good to get a 150 dpi grayscale JPG under 500KB, and still have
a
halfway decent image when you actually print it. The 300 dpi line art TIF
file with LZW will run circles around it, both quality and file size.

These approximate file size guesses are not very exact, it depends on the
image content (it could even be smaller). Blank line art black or white
page
space compresses unbelieveably well.
Click to expand...
 
Hello,

Wayne is correct. Microtek and other scanner manufacturers
occassionally sway back and forth between black and white scanner lids.
I have spoken to them many times and I had the same question. They
explained that customers would complain when they had white lids that
when they zoomed in they would see traces of gray between the lid and
there scanned image. With the black background this problem is solved.
If you insist upon a white background you could always match up a
piece of construction paper to the lid as a temporary solution.

Jeremy
 
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