Scanners

redwolf · Post by **redwolf** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 10:20 am

Is there such thing as a decent, reasonably-priced scanner that can scan the entirety of normal TV-sized genga and cels in one pass? I like to show everything, but I have to piece together even the smallest of cels on my 6 year old Canon. I've had this 150 page set from Azumanga Daioh staring at me for months now... I don't know if I should kick myself started or start looking for a new scanner.

Though I'm sure I'll end up doing both sooner or later, given the strange noises my scanner occasionally makes...

kira · Post by **kira** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 2:59 pm

decent one, yes, you'll probably find that. resonably priced that's a different story.

i know just looking for scanners that scan 8x14 are expensive.

aernath · Post by **aernath** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 4:24 pm

Yeah, good luck there. I asked my husband when we were in the market for a new scanner a year or so ago, if we could get one that has a large enough platen to scan an entire cel in one pass.
The answer: No.
It's just too darned expensive.
And yes, it's a pain to merge two scans for each darned sheet. I feel your pain there completely!

redwolf · Post by **redwolf** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 6:11 pm

*Sigh* I figured as much from looking at Cnet.com... So, that would be option A, kick my sorry butt moving.

I must have been hallucinating, but I was sure I had seen at least a couple times where someone said "It was so big I had to piece together two scans!" (what are you talking about? I do that for every cel!) They must have been the types who don't scan the top of the cel.

It sucks to look at my scanner (8.5x12) and know that if it was just one inch wider it would cut my scanning time by more than half. It would be good for my artwork too, since a lot of my art paper is 9x12.

Maiko · Post by **Maiko** » Sun Oct 08, 2006 3:18 am

Oddly, it was easier to get decent scanners with bigger scanning surface areas for a good price 5-8 years ago. One of my first scanners was an old HP model, and cost a little around $150, and had a scanning surface of 9 x 12. I would still be using it if it's drivers could function on an operating system higher than Windows 95. However, I finally junked the one old computer I had that still ran that operating system. So when I started looking around for a new scanner, I was amazed at how hard it was to find *anything* above an 8 x 11 scanning surface that didn't run several hundreds of dollars.

The one I finally ended up settling on that I use now has a scanning surface of 8.5" x 14", and also has a seperate section of glass on it that specifically scans slides and/or photo negatives ( which I'll use..what..never? ). After shipping and handling, it cost me $500. And if it weren't for warranties, I wouldn't call it 'decent'. After only about 3 months, it broke down, and I had to have HP ship out a replacement, and I had to go through all the hassle of sending back the defunct one. And then for some reason, HP sent me ANOTHER ONE. When I originally called them about the second replacement they sent, they claimed they had no record of mailing more than one. LOL- I could have had a second one of these over-priced scanners for free- but I'm sure HP would have discovered their error eventually and then there would have been a lovely surprise charge to my credit card ( hmm..maybe HP was testing me? ).

Anyway, even with an 8.5 x 14 scanning surface, I still had to make several passes on over-sized cels and pan cels and stitch them together. One of my more recent headaches was scanning one of my new rilezu, which is a pan cel. It took 4 seperate passes and just about as many hours in Photoshop to make a complete, decent image.

So you may have to look really hard online to see if you can even find anything larger than an 8 x 11 scanner for a good price. It's a real shame, because it used to be so much easier to find them. For the most part, I would stay away from those "all-in-one" fax, scanner, and printers. My parents have one, and I have tried using it to scan before. It's scanning software absolutely stinks, and it can't even pick up genga sketches half the time, and their glass scanning surface is actually even smaller than 8 x 11 ( on most models I have used, anyway ) because the glass isn't perfectly rectangular, as it either has a slight curve or is in an "L" shape in order to accomodate the shape of the paper feeder and paper trays for the printer/fax part of the machine.

kira · Post by **kira** » Sun Oct 08, 2006 12:34 pm

maybe i'm weird but i dont mind if that top part of the cel is cut off. just so long as it scans the cel decently and i get all of the image i want.

the only time i want to curse my scanner is when it decides it wants to just scan in a small stip of the cel/sketch. i dont know if does this because of hte settings i have but it's frustrating when it does that. that's my only complaint.

Maiko · Post by **Maiko** » Sun Oct 08, 2006 2:05 pm

kira wrote: the only time i want to curse my scanner is when it decides it wants to just scan in a small stip of the cel/sketch. i dont know if does this because of hte settings i have but it's frustrating when it does that. that's my only complaint.

Actually, I think that is probably a goof in the scanner's software that it came with. My boyfriend's scanner has an obnoxious habit where if you scan an image that might have long, parallel lines in the drawing somewhere ( like buildings, or sometimes swords ), the scanner's software sometimes registers those drawn lines as the edge of the paper/document you are scanning, and it either skews the preview and saved image, or cuts it off altogether. We eventually started putting a penny on the scanning glass right next to the cels and whatever else it was we were scanning to keep it from doing this.

kira · Post by **kira** » Sun Oct 08, 2006 2:14 pm

ah,ok.

well, with my kyou kara maou sketches, that i did have, when i scanned in a certain set, it'd only scan in one person. it was of yuuri, wolfram(all you can see is his back, and a woman(cant remember her name). well the scanner would only scan in that woman no matter where i stuck the sketch on the scanner. grr.