Looking for a non-aggravating scanner.

April 25, 2012 2:55 PM

I need a new scanner, and would like to get a decent flatbed, but I have some questions.

Ideally, I would like something that I can do scans from large books and/or album covers. I know that the largest for standard consumer models is 11x17, but even in that size, it would be helpful if the edges around the glass were flat, so it were easier to scan larger pieces of art without needing dealing with the awkward bevel that home models have.

Also, if there is such a thing as a 12x18 scanner, or something slightly larger, that would be perfect.

Any recommendations, re: brand, speed, quality, etc?

posted by lkc to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

The last time I looked into such, I had no luck. Unless it's a dedicated book scanner, I think it's going to have a raised plastic shelf around the glass platen. This is an engineering consideration; the plastic retains the glass when one carelessly holds the scanner upside down. Having the glass not fall out is desirable.

Also, if there is such a thing as a 12x18 scanner, or something slightly larger, that would be perfect.
11" x 17" is A3 size. The next size up is A2 size, 16.53" x 23.38". From a bit of googling, A2 format scanners exist, and they cost thousands of dollars. I suspect there's no real market for scanners in sizes between A2 and A3.

For an 11"x17" scanner, consider a multifunction printer-scanner:
Brother-MFC-6490CW-Wireless-Inkjet-Printer
(Or similar stuff that amazon throws at you on that page.) It's about the same price as a scanner, and illustrators/cartoonists like these sorts of machines.

Consider building a home book scanner around a digital camera:
http://www.diybookscanner.org/
posted by sebastienbailard at 10:44 PM on April 25, 2012

I don't think I've ever seen a consumer flatbed scanner as big as 12x18. But as far as a scanner with a flat edge, there's the Plustek OpticBook 3600. It's meant for scanning books, particularly hardbacks. It doesn't scan right to the edge, but within a few (5mm) of it, definitely helps with the shadow and uneven lighting caused by normal scanner edges.

For larger artwork, I wonder if some kind of camera tripod setup with a deskew editing would work? Or maybe scan it in parts and edit together in photoshop? I seem to recall there is some kind of program out there that stitches pictures together as long as they overlap a lot. (Like those panorama photo editors)

Anyway, if you do go with the Plustek OpticBook 3600, I recommend getting a third party warranty whenever Squaretrade has a 30% off sale. They're notoriously short-lived, but there isn't a lot of choice when it comes to book edged scanners, and the OpticBook is the most popular one, and definitely the cheapest. (Note the OpticBook Plus is the same as the OpticBook, just comes with some OCR software for text recognition, which you probably don't care about)

Good luck!
posted by Aliera at 10:47 PM on April 25, 2012

I've also been in the market for a big scanner, to scan my artwork. From my research, I'm with sebastienbailard. I ended up getting that Brother 11"x17" scanner, which works well because a lot of the drawings I do are about 11"x14". Everything I found that's bigger was thousands of dollars. However, it doesn't meet all of your criteria that would make it easy to scan the insides of large books. It kinda sucks as a printer (and mine has been jammed for almost a year now) but as a scanner it's fine.

If your scanned originals are REALLY large, maybe you already know this, but I swear by File -> Automate -> Photomerge in Photoshop. That's probably what Aliera is alluding to. Here's Adobe's instructions. Basically it composites separate pieces of one large image into on, providing the sections have sufficient overlap. It saves a lot of tedious editing of edges if you have to scan something in multiple steps.
posted by fireflies at 10:17 AM on April 26, 2012