Scanners

[Ravnos]

So I have a ton of magazines in a closet in my apartment, and the boxes they're in are falling apart and crushing the ones at the bottom. I want to free up the space and get rid of them, but I want the information in them. So I need a scanner. I'm wondering if anyone here can recommend a good one for things like magazines and comics. I'm hoping to spend less than $200 Canadian. It needs to pick up the colours fairly well without much fucking around, and ideally it would work with SANE, but that's a preference, not a requirement. Any recommendations would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[trooper]

I know this may sound a silly answer to your question and probably serves no purpose in actually answering your question, But, I haven`t owned/used a scanner for oowww, 8 - 10 years. I now always use my digital camera in macro/text mode for making copies of document for archiving or emailing etc.

My camera is only a Casio Exilim EX-750 (7.2 Megapixel), But the output quality of proper digital cameras (Not mobile phone
cameras) are exceptional nowadays (in the right lighting), That i personally see no point in investing in a scanner for
personal use.

Trooper

 

[Ravnos]

I know this may sound a silly answer to your question and probably serves no purpose in actually answering your question, But, I haven`t owned/used a scanner for oowww, 8 - 10 years. I now always use my digital camera in macro/text mode for making copies of document for archiving or emailing etc.

My camera is only a Casio Exilim EX-750 (7.2 Megapixel), But the output quality of proper digital cameras (Not mobile phone
cameras) are exceptional nowadays (in the right lighting), That i personally see no point in investing in a scanner for
personal use.

Trooper

I actually remember seeing a DIY rig for that on Lifehacker a while back, but I was skeptical that it would be as good, fast, or as easy as a decent scanner.I might have to give it a try though.

 

[Javacat]

You reminded me of this site! http://www.diybookscanner.org/

I think I found that site after reading the lifehacker article last year (or rather what was probably a rewrite on the BBC site or something...). I imagine one of those would be easier for you to use to do all of your magazines (and fun to make!), rather than using a boring old flatbed



I demand pix if you do make one

 

[kuru]

In my office and at home I have a cheap HP All-In-one solution, OfficeJet 4900. The printing quality isn't great but it has an automatic paper pull-in feeder and comes with good HP software that knows OCR and can spew out searchable PDF amongst 10 or 15 other formats. You could cut away the spine of your magazines and put them on the feeder tray to have it scan away. I guess you won't want to have a scanner without feeder since you'll spend freaking ages to get your collection done.

The camera approach would be cheapest if you already own one, but also most inconvenient and of lowest quality and usability, IMO.

 

[Ravnos]

In my office and at home I have a cheap HP All-In-one solution, OfficeJet 4900. The printing quality isn't great but it has an automatic paper pull-in feeder and comes with good HP software that knows OCR and can spew out searchable PDF amongst 10 or 15 other formats. You could cut away the spine of your magazines and put them on the feeder tray to have it scan away. I guess you won't want to have a scanner without feeder since you'll spend freaking ages to get your collection done.

I've learned this already. Wound up borrowing a friend's HP flatbed scanner. 4 hours to do one fucking magazine, I will die before I get my whole collection done. Quality was ok though. Your OfficeJet, do you do any colour scanning with it? If you scan a magazine or comic book page, how well do the colours look? Does it do double-sided scanning? I can't seem to find a link for that model, how much did it cost?