Buying a Scanner for anime artwork

Arrow · Post by **Arrow** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 6:38 pm

I've also been wondering about scanners with larger scanning areas for a while now, so I appreciate all the suggestions here.

Curious about this A3 Mustek, I hope they come out with a better model by the time I have the space to fit an A3 scanner in my house!

iceman57 · Post by **iceman57** » Sat Apr 18, 2009 7:45 am

Tested various scanners in Paris chinese electronic district.

MUSTEK A3 RULES (210mm x 297mm glass almost 10"x15" ).

Put an option on 1200 version because 600 one is interpolating height and may occur possible distortion.
This is the most competitive A3 scanner available on the market with a retail price of 150 US$.
German quality, produced in Germany by a company whom center of interest is scanner since years.

Once scanned in "HQ" mode, your anime cel on screen will look almost zoom 4:1 factor. You've to reduce with Photoshop (or any software) to a 800-900px width image to have close to a 1:1 scale feeling.

Here is a raw file sample (TIF converted to JPG 80%) from my Arcadia OP, size is 4000x3000px of 1.7 Mb :
http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/7572/mustekscan.jpg

Here is a resized file :
http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/9260/arcadia800.jpg

Background color is due to a carton sheet stuck to the cel, I advise you to put a white papersheet on the back of your cel when you can it otherwise you'll have a black reflection color from the panel.

Note that Panel can be dismounted and allows to scan books with articulated iron sliders of 40mm (2").

Note that the scanner is not self powered by computer USB connection, you need to plug it with its own AC/DC converter.

All my gallery pictures are scanned with Mustek machine : http://toshiro.rubberslug.com

Now you've all cards in hand to judge... Enjoy

Vote for Toshiro's featuring !

Krafty · Post by **Krafty** » Sun Apr 19, 2009 7:03 am

Thanks for the information, Iceman. I bought the Canon Canoscan LiDE 90 and it's a very good scanner- the only problem is the size of the scanner bed for oversized artwork. Because of this, I might buy a Mustek A3 at a later date.
Hoever the last thing I want is a reminder to scan more artwork, it's realy got on top of me now so I'm just leaving it when I consider all the hours of work that will go into scanning thousands of cels/sketches. Thinking about it gives me a headache and heavy heart

iceman57 · Post by **iceman57** » Sun Apr 19, 2009 7:32 am

Krafty wrote:Thanks for the information, Iceman. I bought the Canon Canoscan LiDE 90 and it's a very good scanner- the only problem is the size of the scanner bed for oversized artwork. Because of this, I might buy a Mustek A3 at a later date.
Hoever the last thing I want is a reminder to scan more artwork, it's realy got on top of me now so I'm just leaving it when I consider all the hours of work that will go into scanning thousands of cels/sketches. Thinking about it gives me a headache and heavy heart

I first saw Canon commercial and tested the L90, L200 and 4400 xxxx something... I visited various stores with an anime cel and tried to see how it enter in the scanner.

A german collector recommanded me this scanner 6 months ago, and I won't change

A3 plastic shell is quite huge, don't focus on A3 format, add 8cm at each side. Fortunally this is not so heavy as it is big.

Count something like 10 seconds for scan and 10 more for image integration by the software. You can make batch scans and store them only once all done. I do this frequently on a row of 4 cels for my UV tests.
Just remember that TIF file size is around 30mb to have enough HD space.
Once turned to JPG format with max. quality, you cut to 8mb per file.

I agree that this is not a pro resolution like other scanner on the market but to archive and update RS galleries, do we require a 3000 US$ scanner ? I don't think so...
For semi-pro, at a cost of 150 US$ this "MUSTEK A3 1200" is holy grail.

Check the scan results on my gallery, this is really helpful for my 300 dpi requirements in thesis printing, and I can easily zoom a picture detail.

If you require further details, feel free to ask.

iceman57 · Post by **iceman57** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 6:08 am

Krafty wrote:Thanks for the information, Iceman. I bought the Canon Canoscan LiDE 90 and it's a very good scanner- the only problem is the size of the scanner bed for oversized artwork. Because of this, I might buy a Mustek A3 at a later date.
Hoever the last thing I want is a reminder to scan more artwork, it's realy got on top of me now so I'm just leaving it when I consider all the hours of work that will go into scanning thousands of cels/sketches. Thinking about it gives me a headache and heavy heart

Gallery updated with the scanner :
http://toshiro.rubberslug.com

Golden Boy · Post by **Golden Boy** » Thu Jul 02, 2009 9:21 am

just thought I'd echo iceman's recommendations. i've been tracking the reviews of the 1200 version on amazon. most of the mac users were pretty happy with the plug and play ability and new mac osx drivers. so i sold my old mustek A3 600 on ebay and bought the newer 1200 version. i've been very happy with it so far. i can scan from my mac instead of my wife's pc. i can access the twain interface with photoshop. no obvious color casts that i can see and scans no longer have the striations i would see with the 600 model. hard to beat at $160 for an A3 scanner.

gb

iceman57 · Post by **iceman57** » Thu Jul 02, 2009 2:41 pm

You're welcome, I especially appreciated your interesting comments about MAC computers

As you said this is hard to beat such price for an A3 scanner.
Just don't forget to put all quality settings to the maximum.

Concerning lines appearing on scans, I made around 100 scans till today and have the same, I may suppose that this is due to glass cleaning if not maybe some damage of time on the lens, no idea.

Anyway, I won't change, I'm too happy with it

ginga123 · Post by **ginga123** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 10:43 pm

I recently invested in the Canon Lide200 and the price was very reasonable at $90 after state taxes. It works great, but I am a little disappointed that it doesn't scan certain shades of red and purple very well. I do like the portablility of this scanner though and the fact that it IS quiet. It even doesn't require a power cord-- the USB cord is the connector/power for this machine.

graymouser · Post by **graymouser** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 10:59 pm

I recently had to replace my scanner. I forgot about this thread until after I bought it. As it turns out I got a Mustek with a large scan area and I really like it. I scan with the Mustek, but then do my size editing and such with my old Corel program. I was quite impressed that it does the job it does considering how inexpensive it was.

iceman57 · Post by **iceman57** » Thu Jul 09, 2009 5:16 am

Open poll to Mustek regular users, after 200 scans, some lines appear on result file on black color areas, an idea of the source ?

- Window to be cleaned up drastically ?
- CCD current damage like any Xerox in the office ?
- Window's inside scanner is dusted ?

I'll maybe send a small report about to Mustek for feedback...