Anime-Beta TNG

finally the day has come...in the past, I've always thought that I'd never have enough cels that needs to be updated into gallery and that whatever tiny pieces I might have a camera would do the trick. that no longer seems to be the case because I'm tired of the different picture sizes and image being blurry or too flashy. so I'm now looking to buy a decent scanner that is affordable as well as not damaging the cel. does anyone have any recommendation for such a scanner?

any help appreciated and thanks in advance

I've been really happen with my HP scanner. I forget the model number but it does allow me to scan items up to B4 size. The software is easy to use and it's very versatile, so you can use it not only when scanning items but also when modifying digital camera photos. I find that some of the colors, like yellows, aren't picked up as well as they should with the HP scanner. But the nice thing is that the scanner has the ability to modify the colors prior to the final scan, so if the colors don't look as bright as they should, you can modify it to your taste. That's really helpful when you own a lot of backgrounds and want to display them as they were meant to be seen.

I've been debating getting an A3 scanner since I have so many items that are larger than B4, but once you get past B4, the scanner prices become ridiculously expensive. The cheapest I've found is anything by Mustek. I've heard that the software that comes with the scanner is a little wonky, but that the scanner does work amazingly well (and won't break the bank). Most of the reviews I've seen mention that you should stick with the 1200 resolution model instead of the 2400 model. Does anyone have an A3 Mustek scanner that they would recommend?

(Sorry to hijack the thread....)

eh, I have a HP painter/scanner but this thing damages cel like crazy. I tried it once on a freebie and after all the scanning done back and forth not only did the lines on cel fade but the color looks all wired too not to mention that the cel feels all warm and fuzzy and that the imagine came out pretty crappy as well-_-"

so yeah, I would like a scanner that won't damage cel or take too long to scan that is affordable, like something under 60-70 bucks if possible. B4 I think would be ok for me, the pans I can just go with camera.

Most I know including myself have had good luck with the Mustek brand of scanners. The advantage is you can get an 11X17 scan surface for around what others charge for a smaller 9 1/2X 11 scan surface.
Only problem I personally had was it took close to 6 months before Mustek released a win 7 driver so I could scan with it after I changed computers. Since then it's been fine.

MUSTEK rocks !

I use an Hp Scanjet G3010 it picks up colors (pinks in particular) amazing which seems hard for other scanners, If you keep looking on ebay you can find one really cheap

haha, I actually am looking at a mustek scanner right now on ebay...but let me check out the HP Scanjet G3010, sounds futuristic and if its cheap, all the merrier. thanks for the info!

well, it looks like both of them are over 100$, or a decently condition one at least. I'm gonna have to wait till my B-day, not that far away

ok, so I ended up receiving a Mustek scanner as a gift. but a concern of mine: it takes quite about 20-30 secs to scan a normal cel, as I set it on "very high quality". is that normal? I'm afraid that this might be bad for the cel.

also, I try to keep the cel bag on during the scan and obviously there are winkles on the imagine, so another question, how does everyone else scan their cels? bags on or off?

theultimatebrucelee wrote:also, I try to keep the cel bag on during the scan and obviously there are winkles on the imagine, so another question, how does everyone else scan their cels? bags on or off?

I do mine with the bags off

theultimatebrucelee wrote:ok, so I ended up receiving a Mustek scanner as a gift. but a concern of mine: it takes quite about 20-30 secs to scan a normal cel, as I set it on "very high quality". is that normal? I'm afraid that this might be bad for the cel.

also, I try to keep the cel bag on during the scan and obviously there are winkles on the imagine, so another question, how does everyone else scan their cels? bags on or off?

I have found the higher the resolution scans do take longer. When I scan mine I normally use 400 and that work for the majority.

thanks D123, I will try some more cels without bag and determined. so far I haven't seen any obvious cel damage from scanning and I do prefer high quality, clear image by far but I don't want to hurt my more "expensive" pieces as each one cost me more than the scanner itself and I do want to sell them back one day to the market so I would want to preserve them at best condition possible. although scan may only be once in a life time, the beautifully preserved cel through over a decade shouldn't be exposed to any risk is what I'd like to act based on currently.

JWR wrote:I have found the higher the resolution scans do take longer. When I scan mine I normally use 400 and that work for the majority.

yeah, I was expecting a few secs per image haha. well I did only get the gray color scanner and not the more expensive black one so maybe that one's faster. I will try the 400 resolution and hope that makes up a bit on time.

looking at your gallery I noticed that a few cels you have are scanned image within bag while the rest are not, is there a particular reason for that? what is your preference for different cases?

theultimatebrucelee wrote:
looking at your gallery I noticed that a few cels you have are scanned image within bag while the rest are not, is there a particular reason for that? what is your preference for different cases?

Mostly laziness on my part. most are the dealer scans I never got around rescanning. I was quite backed up for a while waiting for Mustek to release a new driver for Win 7 after I bought a new computer.

hehe, I do appreciate laziness as I'm fairly lazy myself

I've got a total newbie question here, you mentioned about the 400 resolution...how do you change resolution? my images came out huge and large filesize too(50ish mb per image). under my setting screen for the scanner I the only thing I can find that's related to resolution is quality. do I have to use other program to condense the image?

theultimatebrucelee wrote:hehe, I do appreciate laziness as I'm fairly lazy myself

I've got a total newbie question here, you mentioned about the 400 resolution...how do you change resolution? my images came out huge and large filesize too(50ish mb per image). under my setting screen for the scanner I the only thing I can find that's related to resolution is quality. do I have to use other program to condense the image?

When you get the scan mode settings under the tab "Resolution" you can change if from 200 up to 9600
Below that you should have a box marked output that lists width & height you set the size there or in my case I have a program left over from my old scanner ArcSoft Photo Impression 4 which is where I resize my scanned images convert them to jpeg and then save them in a "my pictures" file till I upload them to RS.