Flatbed Scanner Recommendations?

[Randy Stankey]

I suppose... but don't forget that the guy reverse engineers the scanners that the software supports. That's a fair amount of work.

The drivers and software for my Canon scanner won't run on the Studio Mac and Canon won't update them. The scanner is officially EOL. So says Canon.

A new, out of the box, flatbed scanner will probably cost you $100 for a decent one and, if you want a good quality film scanner, likely more.

So, where else are you going to get software to make your old scanner work again? The guy's got a corner on the market. Doesn't he?

IMO, the price is good for what you're getting.

[Harold Hallikainen]

Not flatbed but MIGHT work for film with the lightbox mentioned above, I like the CZUR scanner at https://shop.czur.com/products/etscanner . I use it a LOT to scan books ( https://bh.hallikainen.org/ ). The scanner consists of a stand with a camera, LED light, and laser line generator. The software is really amazing. When scanning books, it detects the bend of the laser lines as they pass through the gutter. It then separates the left and right pages and straightens out the bend of the pages based on the bend of the laser lines. It does a pretty good job on OCR. I use it to generate PDFs with the image in the foreground and text in the background which allows the text to be searched. I'm quite impressed.

[Frank Cox]

So, where else are you going to get software to make your old scanner work again?

sane supports a lot of old scanners too, so it ultimately depends on what exact scanner you are trying to use.

And if you can buy a new scanner for $100 as you state above (I haven't checked, but I'll take your word for it) this guy's software costs $200 so I could replace my scanner twice...

Personally, I'm not seeing the value proposition here but ymmv, of course.

[Ryan Gallagher]

Not flatbed but MIGHT work for film with the lightbox mentioned above, I like the CZUR scanner at https://shop.czur.com/products/etscanner . I use it a LOT to scan books ( https://bh.hallikainen.org/ ). The scanner consists of a stand with a camera, LED light, and laser line generator. The software is really amazing. When scanning books, it detects the bend of the laser lines as they pass through the gutter. It then separates the left and right pages and straightens out the bend of the pages based on the bend of the laser lines. It does a pretty good job on OCR. I use it to generate PDFs with the image in the foreground and text in the background which allows the text to be searched. I'm quite impressed.

I'll probably end up with a used "decent" flatbed... my budget is probably too tight for those $300+ options for the occasional print frame scan. Software might become the trick to avoid blowing the budget. Perhaps another use for a linux micro computer in the booth. We have an old Win7 laptop too, which could stay Win7 for that purpose or become a linux laptop. In the mean time might give that light box a go that at least has perf registration.

At least I know a little more what is out there that people are using still. Figured it would be an interesting conversation up everyone's alley.

I had to do that task today for Close Encounters in prep for plate filing, pretty tricky eyeballing the perf registration and getting everything to stay still while you let go to snap a photo:

CETK vs BLS 1591:
image0.jpg

CETK vs RP91:
IMG_6615.jpg

[Randy Stankey]

sane supports a lot of old scanners too, so it ultimately depends on what exact scanner you are trying to use.

And if you can buy a new scanner for $100 as you state above (I haven't checked, but I'll take your word for it) this guy's software costs $200 so I could replace my scanner twice...

Personally, I'm not seeing the value proposition here but ymmv, of course.

I understand. I tried various and sundry options, including SANE, but didn't care for them. I didn't care for the drivers from Canon, much at all. VueScan gives you access to all the settings and options that your scanner is capable of. If you set a folder action, you can trigger whatever photo editing or document creation application you want. Tell VueScan to save a file to one folder and Photoshop will open and load the image. Save the file to another folder and your word processor can open and perform OCR on the text.

Also, $200.00 is for a perpetual license, not a monthly subscription. You get all the updates.

The guy writes and sells the software himself and, if you have questions or problems, you can e-mail him and he will answer to help you as much as possible. I had some issues with my scanner when I first got it. Some of my scans were blurry. The guy helped me figure out that the problem was mostly in the scanner, itself. The cause was vibration. He helped me figure out a workaround.

The price might not be so cheap but, if you have an old scanner, $200.00 could be a better price than buying a new one. He did reverse engineer many scanners to make them work. You get a perpetual license with updates and, if you need help, you can talk to the guy who wrote the program.

You get a lot for the price you pay.

BTW: He does offer a trial download so that you can try the software with your computer and scanner so that you know it works before you buy. The trial version watermarks the output file but, once you type in your license key, the watermark goes away.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

I've had an Epson V700 For over 20 years. I still shoot a lot of 4X5, and smaller film formats, and it has always spit out great scans. The only other option is to buy a very expensive Drum Scanner for between 5 and 10K. Epson supports the V700 up to to Mac 15, and for Linux. I have always run mine on Windblows...

[Scott Norwood]

For pictures of motion-picture film frames, another option is a slide duplicator. Look for a Bowens Illumitran. There are others, too. They consist of a base with a strobe light source that backlights the transparency, and a column with a bellows setup, an enlarger lens, and an adapter for your SLR camera of choice (different adapters are needed for different mounts, of course). With a modern digital camera (or electronic film camera), you probably should use an opto-isolator for the strobe trigger. I don't know if it covers 70mm completely, but it would definitely work well for 16mm and 35mm. They are made for duplicating mounted 35mm and medium-format slides. (I have one and can dig it out if you really want to know if it covers a 70mm frame).

[Randy Stankey]

We have an old Win7 laptop too, which could stay Win7 for that purpose or become a linux laptop.

You could always set that old computer up for dual boot. You can have Linux when you want it and Windows when you need it.

I have an old, white iBook, laptop computer that I loaded with Yellow Dog Linux and left the original MacOS on the hard drive, as well. The iBook was EOL and I had other computers that were better. I used it with Linux most of the time but there were occasions when I wanted the original OS. In that case, I restarted the computer while holding down the OPTION key to bring up the boot screen. At that point, select the OS you want to use and go.

There's no reason you can't do the same (similar) on a Windows machine.

I also used to keep a copy of Ubuntu on a flash drive that I carried on my key ring. If I needed to do something, quickly, while I was out and about I could pop the flash drive into almost any computer, reboot and do what I needed. After I was done, I rebooted back to normal and pulled out the flash drive. Nobody would even know that I used that computer. (Without performing some pretty specific forensics.)

However, there are times when wiping the computer and installing Linux as the default OS would be better. Years ago, the hard drive on my mother's computer bit the dust and I had to replace it. I could not find the original OS installer disks and I was not about to pay for a new OS on such an old computer. I went with Ubuntu. Mom complained for about two weeks until she tried to use another computer at the public library which was Windows. She used it for about five minutes, quit and went home to use her own computer. Mom never complained about using Linux again.

Bottom line: You don't have to wipe a computer in order to use Linux unless you want to or you have a compelling reason.

[Scott Norwood]

Dual-booting with Windows and Linux can be an annoying experience. Windows wants the system clock to be set to local time, whereas Linux wants it to be UTC. This can be worked around if needed (timedatectl set-local-rtc 1 --adjust-system-clock). If both operating systems are installed on the same disk/SSD, Windows has a habit of wiping the bootloader when patches are installed, which can leave the Linux partition unbootable. The only good way to avoid this is to install Linux on a different storage device, which can be difficult on laptops, since most only have one SSD slot.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

I have an epdon that does slides and negatives. It works fine, but their software is buggy as hell - crashing or just not working right. I have one of their printers with the same kind of issues.

Sounds, more like like a computer issue since both the scammer and printer are doing the same thing. I have an Epson Scanner and a Brother Laser Printer and never had issues.

[Mike Blakesley]

Sounds, more like like a computer issue since both the scammer and printer are doing the same thing.

I haven't used that 'scammer' in quite a few years, but it had a habit of suddenly just ignoring its start button. Reboot the computer, problem would go away...until it happened again. Maybe in a few days, maybe in a few minutes.

More recently, we bought one of those "FastFoto" scanners (also from Epson, I'm a glutton for punishment) and it worked quite well, until I got a new computer. Tried to install it and my main printer on the same computer, and the two keep fighting with each other for control. Finally I just deleted the scanner and went with the printer alone (it can scan too but not nearly as fast. I'll take the FastFoto scanner home and use it there when I need a bunch of pictures scanned).

My printer is about 10 years newer, and has been used on 2 different computers. What it does is, suddenly for no reason it'll give me an "unable to communicate" error and just sit there like a turd. Power-down and restart sometimes works, but not always. Sometimes when I do that, it'll print what I wanted when it comes back up. If it doesn't, the only sure solution is to pull the power cord out of it, wait a minute and restart, clear the print queue, then reprint. And sometimes the scan button will not work, and sometimes the software 'forgets' that I paid for the full version and reverts to the trial version. It also will decide it has a paper jam when it doesn't really have one. The only way out of that is to go thorough the whole "take this out, take that out, take this out" routine, reassemble it and then possibly repeat. One time it actuallly did have a jam, which surprised me. The other four or five times have been false alarms.

My computers have all been Dells, maybe that's the problem.

I will say that it is much improved since I got the new computer. Way fewer mishaps on the Win11 version of the software, I guess.

[Ryan Gallagher]

For pictures of motion-picture film frames, another option is a slide duplicator. Look for a Bowens Illumitran. There are others, too. They consist of a base with a strobe light source that backlights the transparency, and a column with a bellows setup, an enlarger lens, and an adapter for your SLR camera of choice (different adapters are needed for different mounts, of course). With a modern digital camera (or electronic film camera), you probably should use an opto-isolator for the strobe trigger. I don't know if it covers 70mm completely, but it would definitely work well for 16mm and 35mm. They are made for duplicating mounted 35mm and medium-format slides. (I have one and can dig it out if you really want to know if it covers a 70mm frame).

Hah, I just looked that thing up. That would be quite a conversation starter sitting in the corner of the booth. I expect you could 3D print some film holders that do perf registration if you really wanted. Also kinda overkill territory if not doing this all the time, certainly not portable. I’d have to stumble into one locally I think, don’t trust most eBay sellers to pack something like that safely.