Help w/Buying a Scanner

[nightsky]

Hi all,
I am thinking of buying a scanner and not familiar with what to look for. It would be nice if I cld copy forms directly into ACCESS but I'm not sure if that is an option? lol And I wld like to explore photography using the PC to edit, printing, and upload images for webpages. I used to do photographic related printing work and never had the opportunity to learn the computerized version. I am not looking to spend alot of money just something that isn't junk. Thanks

[glc]

It's hard to beat any of the HP USB scanners at any price point. Check your local Sam's Club - they were selling the 4200C bundled with a cheap HP Apollo printer for $89. Expect to pay more for good software than the scanner itself. The best forms package I know of is OmniForm from ScanSoft. The best graphics program for the money is Paint Shop Pro. Low end scanners do a fine job *optically* but come with pretty basic software that won't do a whole heck of a lot. I will take a cheap scanner with good software over an expensive scanner with lousy software any day - just don't buy a parallel port scanner, please. Stick with USB or SCSI.

[nightsky]

Thanks GLC, u helped me with my CDWR and I am happy with it. lol I do have an old MUSTEK 1200 III EP w/a lexmark Z11. Guess its my limited knowledge and cheap software. Omni software is a lot of money so are there any suggestions or alternatives? What is the most I should pay for PaintShop Pro and Omni?

[morriswindgate]

First of all why buy a new but slow scanner, when you can buy a refurbed for the same price. I have a refurbished HP6200CSE that I got for $110.00, this scanner is the same one we have here at work and it was $499.00 new. The 6200 is Narrow SCSI or USB and has scan speeds of about 10 seconds with an 8x10 photo.
Refurbished units are refurbished by HP and come with a 90 day warranty, and software that is upto date. As part of the Refurbing process they are cleaned, pads renewed, inspected and repaired.
For more info go to www.pricewatch.com and click on "Not Exactly New"

[glc]

OmniForm is $149, and Paint Shop Pro is $119 I think. You only need OmniForm if you are working with forms - and you can do without Paint Shop Pro till you get proficient with the scanner and want something better than the simple software it comes with. Even cheap scanners come with some kind of basic home oriented image editing program such as Adobe PhotoDeluxe or Ulead PhotoImpact (or you can download IrfanView free) and some kind of basic OCR (optical character recognition) software for scanning text into a word processor. With upgraded software you can even use a cheap scanner for business use - but the cheaper it is, the slower it is, and parallel port scanners are PAINFULLY slow.

[nightsky]

Comes w/USB and Parallel cables plus all the software on CD: PaperPort Delux, Textbridge Pro8, MGI Photo Suite IISE $79. for Visioneer 8100. Is Win95c compatible w/visioneer onetouch 8900? Both modles r usb but 8900 appears to have more features plus comes w/Adobe PhotoShop LE for $129. What do u all think? Is it a thumbs up or down? lol

[glc]

Visioneer USB requires 98 - no workee on any 95. Thumbs up on Visioneer though. Worth upgrading to 98 to use.

[nightsky]

I got a gd deal on the OneTouch 8100 $64 plus shiping minus$20 Manufacture Rebate, it cn go either USB or Parallel Port it comes w/both cables. I have USB on my mobo SoyoIV and hav win95c maybe I cn just download the USB Driver. GLC
what is a PCI card?

[glc]

Visioneer does not have a USB driver that works with Win95 - you MUST have Win 98. The USB support in Win95 was quite limited, not too many devices will actually work. You are going to have to upgrade to 98 or use the parallel port (UGH). A PCI card is a card that fits in a PCI slot on your motherboard - why do you ask?

[Black Ice]

I like the HP scanjet 5370c . it scans negatives and you can edit them to 35/110 and others . it comes with every thing you need . Remember you get what you pay for. 299.00 price has dropped a little .so shop around

[nightsky]

How do I upgrade to win98 w/o lossing the programs I have collected and want to keep? I hav avoided win98 and wnt through so much work to install an OEM version of Win95c on this soyo mobo based pc i built. I do have a OEM ver. of WIN98 but it says the ver of WIN95 is not an upgradable version? What do I do? I have the new scanner still sitting in its box, it got delivered fast. lol If I copy the programs I want onto CD can I reinstall them onto win98 if and when I can get win98 on my pc? lol Regards

[HAL9000]

If you want to upgrade from Win95 to Win98, or Win98 to WinME using the full CD (OEM or Retail), boot from either your CD-Rom or floppy disk and boot with CD support. Once that is done, you will be at an A:\ prompt. Switch to your C:\ drive, then to your C:\WINDOWS directory. Either rename or delete the WIN.COM file. Switch to your CD-Rom drive and run the setup. During the installation, you will be prompted for an installation directory. The setup will have renamed it to C:\WINDOWS.000 Select to install to a new directory and rename it back to C:\WINDOWS and continue with the install. Once the install is complete, you will be upgraded to the newer version and have all of your shortcuts and programs left intact. Be ready to do driver upgrades as some older version drivers may not work well with your newer version of Windows. After you are complete, go to Reboot's web site and get a copy of his ShopVac batch file. Follow the instructions exactly and clean out excess garbage from your registry.

[nightsky]

It worked Hal! I installed Win98 over Win95, just earased the win.com flie!Bless every nanometer of grey matter in that head of yours! Too bad I killed of so many of my own soooo long ago. lol So I copied Shopva onto my notepad and it awaits save as command - What Drive Hal - I am set to automatically save in My Document Folder, somehow I don't beleive I ought to save shopvac.bat in "My Documents". Do I Save As "Text Document" or "All Files"? Then How do I run it from DOS Prompt? And finally how do I remove old win95 drivers for my soyo mobo? Thanks

[HAL9000]

Paste the text into notepad. Then click on "Save As" set the file type as *.* name the file Shopvac.bat and just save it in C:\. When you want to run it, click on start > shutdown > restart in DOS mode. When you are there, if it is at a C:\ prompt, just type in shopvac and hit enter. If it is at the C:\Windows directory, type in cd.. then enter, then shopvac.

[nightsky]

When I try to shutdown after clicking on the "Restart in Mode" Option the pc shuts down in Protection Mode and won't restart in DOS Mode??? Don't know what to do? lol Thanks for all your help Hal

[HAL9000]

You can also start the machine and hold down the CTRL key before the Win98 Splash screen. This will bring up the boot menu. Select "Command Prompt Only". This will take you to a C:\ prompt. Run your batch file.

[Anjie]

Hey Nightsky, I do a lot of photo editing, restoration and graphics work on my PC as I make memory quilts. (IF anyone is curious what a memory quilt is I have pics in my Yahoo Briefcase, username Anjie_2.) I have Paintshop Pro 6, Adobe Photoshop 5.5 and Adobe Illustrator 8. I love the Paintshop Pro. It is both the Adobe programs rolled into one (to me anyway). And so much easier to use. Handy roll down tool bars, great workspace layout, and preference settings. All programs will have some special effects or something that the other doesn't have as the Adobe does, but my $100 Paintshop Pro (and that is the MOST you should pay for it) is my most used program. Shouldn't have wasted the money on the 3x's more expensive Adobe programs. Haven't even bothered to install the Adobe programs when I did my last reinstall yet. There are several free training classes on-line to help you use the Paintshop Pro too, from the basics to more in depth stuff such as vector layers and so on. These guys http://www.shopharmony.com/ have it for $79 plus $8 shipping and handling.