Any suggestions on a scanner?

[troysvihl]

I want to get a scanner. I intend to use it to scan music CD inserts, so the material to be scanned is fairly glossy and colorful. So I need a scanner that can handle that stuff well.

My price range is <$500. I'm currently thinking about getting the Epson 1650, which claims to have an optical resolution of 1600 dpi and 48 bit color depth. It lists for about $200.

I don't give a rat's ass about speed, but I do not mind shelling out a hundred dollars more for a decent jump in quality.

Any suggestions? Thanks.

[Terrorbyte]

the subject of copyright has been stated once or twice, doing the covers as well pushes the limits ..... did you say you were making your own original design CD covers ? perhaps I missread it ? was that it ??

:rolleyes:

[troysvihl]

no, you read it right. i'm not creating my own.

[morriswindgate]

Do like I did and go with a refurbished HP 6200C SCSI/USB scanner. At the link below it is $189.0, refurbed by HP and comes with 1 year warranty. When hooked as a SCSI it will scan and 8x10 in about ten seconds with excellant results. This scanner retailed for $400.00 new. When they are refurbed they are reconditioned to better than new. You will need the ADVANSYS SCSI kit which includes the card, cable and software for $59.99.

http://secured.teamexcess.com/servlet/teamx?cart=euexnslihxkm&dept=Scanner&item=P-HP-SJ6300C&action=itemdetail

https://www.initio.com/store/scanner_kits.htm

[troysvihl]

thanks morriswindgate

[Terrorbyte]

Morris is on the money, HP are good stuff, when I bought my HP-5100c it was the best available under $1,000 AUD. Sure there are better and cheaper now!
Depending on your printer and what paper you use the scanner will usually be better that the printer can handle anyway, always use good coated paper, the colour depth and print quality is much better, just run a few on std paper till the measurements are the same.
Having a matched pair, scanner/printer will always give good results.
Any printer that can do 1600x1600 is a fair bet that you will not need that sort of resolution unless making photos.
Sometimes you might have to experiment with colour settings to get them exactly the same as the original, I use Corel Photo paint for that sort of editing.

[troysvihl]

yeah, that's kinda where it gets a bit complicated. You see, I have no printer. I'm just going to create the .tif files and save them until I get around to buying one.

[morriswindgate]

Don't save as a .tif save as a .jpeg

[troysvihl]

Really? That's the exact opposite advise that I've read elsewhere. The reasoning they gave me is that .tif files can be converted to .jpeg, but not the other way around.

You see, here's my plan: I'm moving next year, and just the thought of moving my huge CD collection makes me tired. So in order to raise some extra cash and condense my collection, I'm going to sell the whole collection and keep CD-R copies for myself. The CD-R copies are done, but I'm concerned about not having the playlists from the CD jackets. It's not a problem right now, but in the future I may want to print them up. So, my dilemma is that I want to keep my future options open by having all my CD jackets saved in the best-quality file format that I can afford to use. I want to have the widest available choices if I ever decide to print them up, so when I read on another board that .tif files were the most flexible picture format, I figured that was the way to go. .tif files are a bit big, but they seemed to have the best reproductabiltiy options.

Can you explain your reasoning for suggesting .jpeg's instead?

[morriswindgate]

jpegs are nice and small with great resolution. And you can convert them to any file using a program like Paintshop pro. As a matter of fact, I have my CD collection jackets scanned for insurance purposes and cataloging. Get back to it, Paintshop Pro is an easy program to use and you can scan directly into it to crop and resize as needed.

[Terrorbyte]

Do you have a list available of the music thats for sale ? I always am buying CD's.
Dave.

[troysvihl]

oh, i wish. But the size of my CD collection would make creating a list a pretty hefty task.

But if there are any particular titles you're looking for, just give me a heads up and I'll let you have first dibs. I'll let them go for whatever the going rate is on Ebay.

[morriswindgate]

I don't know if you know of this site, but they buy and sell CDs. Check it out you can probably get a better price.

http://www.spun.com/

[troysvihl]

no, i was unaware of that site. Thanks

[Jenni]

WHat OS are you using? There are compatibility issues with Win2k and parallel port scanners, just something to keep in mind.

[troysvihl]

XP, but I'm sure that I'll be using a USB connection, but thanks for the tip

[shecky981]

Originally posted by morriswindgate
jpegs are nice and small with great resolution. And you can convert them to any file using a program like Paintshop pro.

Sorry morris, but this is not entirely true...

a .TIFF file is a "lossless" compression algorithm, in other words, when you make a file as a .tiff you do not throw away any data that composes the picture. a .JPG is a "lossy" compression algorithm, in other words, you throw away some data to make the file smaller (usually MUCH MUCH MUCH smaller than a .tiff)

so, yes, you can convert a .tiff to a .jpg and then back to a .tiff, but you will lose data and picture quality. And converting an image that was scanned directly to .jpg ti a .tiff is basically useless. Aditionally, there is very little adjustment you can make to the image (high quailty adjustments, i mean) once it is saved as a .jpg.

My personal suggestion, for print media (CD covers, for example) is to scan at approximately 300 - 400 DPI/LPI with the scanner, and save the image as a .tiff, or better yet as a .PSD or .EPS (photoshop file) both of which are lossless formats, (also, the EPS and PSD formats will retain layer information for further editing) untill you are ready to print the image. I would always archive the image in the best quality file format possible. It is easy to make it smaller and lighter that way, but, it is usually impossible to make a highly compressed image file high quality again.

For a home/prosumer purposes, Paintshop Pro from Jasc is an EXCELLENT program for the price (around $100 USD) tho, if you can get it, get Photoshop (roughly $700 USD) from Adobe. nothing compares to it.

nearly fergot.... for me, Agfa is the absoloute BEST scanner on the planet. Unfortunately, most of them are outrageously expensive, BUT, if you can find a deal, grab it. even the lower end product from them is amazingly good.

[troysvihl]

good stuff, thanks.

[troysvihl]

BTW, what is the difference between .PSD and .EPS formats? Does one have an advantage over the other?

[shecky981]

.PSD is a Photoshop Document
.EPS is Encapsulated Post Script

a PSD is an actual Photoshop formatted bitmapped document. it retains layers, etc...

an EPS is a vector format (like Illustrator or Freehand)

EPS can be translated over more kinds of programs, but can be less reliably formatted at times. So, when you open it in something it may have colors that are off, etc.

if you are going to use Photoshop, then i would scan the images into Photoshop and save as a PSD, which is Photoshop's native format, and will make it easy to adjust it later.

If you are not sure, then save as a TIFF.

[troysvihl]

thank you