Software for scanning prints - free if possible

Having bought a new Canon scanner I am underwhelmed by the bundled software.

Good points - put a single photo of any size in the scanner and push the auto scan button and it quickly scans the picture and crops to the edges.

Bad points - despite the alleged high possible resolutions it doesn't seem to offer more than 600 dpi via the configuration utility and I can't even get it to auto scan at that resolution - obviously not understanding how the (undocumented) features work.

So I am contemplating using other software. I thought it came with Photoshop Elements but it turns out that was only the MK 1 version, not the MK 2 that I have.

So - bundled software apparently not much good, so use something else.

TWAIN compliant scanner, so a lot of software packages can use it. I have had acceptable results with Windows Paint - I can select the resolution beyond 300/600 DPI but this scans to a buffer and needs manually cropping and saving, so isn't good for bulk scanning loads of photos.

Given the above, there seem to be two routes to go:

(1) Free or paid scanner software - I know about Vuescan because I helped a friend get an old semi-professional SCSI scanner set up. Google doesn't really turn up much else. The Standard Edition is $39.95 (about £27) but doesn't support scanning of slides/negatives and the Pro Edition is $89.95 (about £61).

(2) Photo manipulation software such as Photoshop Elements 13 (about £65 from Amazon - 11 and 12 are about £10 more!). GIMP is free but previous experience suggests that it is possibly too powerful and complex for this simple application.

So, scanner users.

What software do you use to bulk scan prints?

I think the facilities I need are a one click operation to:

scan picture

crop automatically

generate file name

so the number of interactions is cut to a minimum.

It would be nice to load in several photos at once and have them automatically recognised as multiple pictures and saved to different files, but that would be icing on the cake.

Cheers

Dave R

Reply to
David
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I don't use it for scanning, but

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has batch processing facilities and the faq says it supports batch scanning (even without an auto document feeder)

Owain

Reply to
spuorgelgoog

Supplementary - the Windows software Paint and Windows Fax&Scan both refuse to set a resolution above 600 DPI, saying that they are illegal values.

So presumably the scanner (driver?) is reporting this in some way.

I have raised a query with Canon support but I have no idea how long this will take to get a response.

Has anyone come across a similar problem with scanners?

Cheers

Dave R

Reply to
David

Which scanner is it?

Reply to
Richard

Yes, you select 'single image' or multiple images' from the scanning dialogue and can select options for the base title eg. IMG, Scan or Holidays and then choose an auto incrementing number for the suffix with optional padding. Scans are saved automatically to a chosen folder.

Thereafter you just keep hitting the scan button or preview and then scan and the scanning dialogue remains open ready for the next scan.

The selectable resolutions will depend on the twain driver provided with scanner but I'd question the wisdom of scanning above 600dpi for prints, it will take ages, generate huge files and I doubt the extra resolution will recover much more detail.

Similarly, I think the recognition of individual images within the scanning field will also be a function of the driver.

You (o/p) will still be stuck with making fine rotations to square up the images and Irfanfiew is a little clunky in that respect. Photoshop is better and there are 'free' editions of CS2 available which have quite a nice fine rotation mechanism. Gimp (free) may have something similar.

Reply to
fred

Canon CanoScan 9000F Mark II

Reply to
David

Still adding to the original post.

Canon CanoScan 9000F Mark II

I have now downloaded and installed GIMP and when I use it to scan it first asks which driver to use (I see two different Canon ones) and which ever driver I select it offers a maximum resolution of 600 DPI.

I have downloaded and installed VueScan and I am running that as a trial version. VueScan provides its own driver (which is the main purpose of the software) and offers the expected resolutions for the scanner. It also scans at these resolutions. So the problem seems to lie with the supplied Canon driver.

I've just updated all the drivers and software to the latest version (thought I was on the latest, but perhaps not)

One driver package now seems to support 1200 DPI for use with other software but the My Image Garden software still only seems to configure up to 600 DPI.

Subject to more information from Canon, the only route for higher definition scans seems to be via VueScan.

Not impressed if I have to cough more money just to unlock the basic features of the scanner.

They may be concerned about naive users scanning in A4 colour prints at

4800 DPI and consuming vast amounts of memory and disc space, but the full features (as advertised on their web page) should be available as at least advanced features in the standard software.

Cheers

Dave R

Reply to
David

Thanks to you both - will give it a go. I have downloaded it.

What is CS2, please?

Cheers

Dave R

Reply to
David

May 2005 version of Adobe Photoshop

Owain

Reply to
spuorgelgoog

The GIMP does indeed have a facility for gentle or coarse rotation of the image, . Rotate with arrow keys, increment a counter, or enter a number, then activate it.

Reply to
Davey

Photoshop CS2 with CS2 indicating their version number. Current version is CS5.

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Adobe abandoned their licensing server support for CS2 a couple of years ago and so offered it for download with an open key to users no longer able to authenticate their purchase via a license server.

D/l here:

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_CS2_English.exe

or

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Key:

1045-1412-5685-1654-6343-1431

Another has confirmed that GIMP has a useful fine rotation feature so you might want to try that.

Oh, wait a minute, latest version of Irfanview has rotate to line, you draw a line on the image that over an edge/line that you want to be vertical or horizontal, confirm the action and the image is rotated accordingly. This means that you could do it all in Irfanview, first batch capture a whole bundle then walk through them, correcting for rotation. Actually better I think than the old Photoshop method IMV as you can zoom in before drawing your snap-to line. Certainly worth a play.

Reply to
fred

In article , David writes

I see it has an autoscan button which may be the quickest way to get raw scans in.

On a previous canon I have used, the scan button (on the machine) triggers an application and you can set parameters for the scan within the application settings for the button on the PC. The defaults I recall were always set pretty conservatively but were editable.

If no joy then try contacting canon support about how to scan to full res. As it claims 4,800 optical for print scanning then I would expect them to be able to help.

Reply to
fred

Have you actually *read* the documentation which came with the scanner - including the 334 page on-screen manual (which can be found at content.etilize.com/User-Manual/1024506887.pdf)?

The scanner comes with MP Navigator Ex for people who want just to be able to "point and shoot" without getting their hands dirty. But it also comes with ScanGear which enables you to control the scanner at driver level. That has several modes - including advanced. I'd be very surprised if that doesn't do everything you want to do.

Reply to
Roger Mills

Well, thanks again.

I now have Infraview running in batch scanning mode and I have managed to get the latest Canon driver/utility which will configure up to 1200 DPI, although the Canon supplied photo utility will still only go up to 600 DPI.

The photos at 1200 DPI are looking O.K. and a single photo is coming in at under 2 Mb which isn't going to eat up disc space.

The interesting bit (possibly) is that it doesn't do one full scan then split the pictures afterwards in software. It splits the pictures up in preview, then does multiple scans, one per picture. Presumably this allows it to do in flight fixing (if required) for each picture individually but it does make for slower scanning.

Anyway, now dashing through the photo albums a lot faster than my old scanner.

I can now decide on VueScan at my leisure. I am still seriously tempted, and this would also allow me to couple up my ancient scanner without needing to keep an XP virtual machine (due to lack of compatible TWAIN drivers for recent versions of Windows).

I may not need the Pro version as Gimp can drive the photo negative scanner bit, but again that needs testing for sanity with the settings.

Not the sophisticated experience you would expect for a scanner costing over £150.

Cheers

Dave R

Reply to
David

Happily if you align the pictures to the edge of the bed then they come out aligned.

So far, so good!

Reply to
David

The buttons are udderish on bullish. The autoscan doesn't seem (so far) to have the flexibility to fire up the applications I am using in the way I am using them.

It would be nice to have a "Scan Print" button instead of AutoScan (which has a will of its own) and a row of PDF related buttons. [To be fair, this is just echoing the Which? review which also found the buttons mainly useless.]

As I posted somewhere I have already griped to Canon support but I don't hold out much hope.

I can get full resolution with VueScan, of course.

Cheers

Dave R

Reply to
David

Consider yourself very surprised?

Also, it doesn't come with MP Navigator EX.

The manual seems to refer to the MK 1 version (which I don't have) which came with a much more comprehensive software bundle.

No manual of apparent comparable size is listed on the Canon support pages.

Most of the pages in the one I have cover trouble shooting.

So yes, I have actually read the documentation.

Have you?

Reply to
David

"David" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net...

Dave, You can download the latest manual from:

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Perhaps there is something here to help:

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A quote from there: Sadly, we experienced differences in certain situations, depending on our choice of program to open ScanGear with (My Image Garden vs. IJ Scan Utility). We noticed this when we made an effort to test-scan with high resolution: ScanGear refused to fine-scan a 35mm transparency at the chosen resolution of 9600 ppi, asking to either reduce the scan area, or the output size, or the resolution. We felt a bit cheated here: If the device packaging states 9600 ppi, the scan software should be able to deal with the resulting - large amounts of data. Canon CanoScan 9000F Mark II We found an answer to this problem in the online manual. The menu item large format scans has to be acitvated in the settings of ScanGear. At this point, it's crucial that the ScanGear-setting are opened from the tool IJ Scan Utility and not through the software My Image Garden - the settings of the latter do not offer the aforementioned option. Hence, large material cannot be digitized via My Image Garden but only via IJ Scan Utility, using the QuickMenu. We would have saved ourselves lots of time, had we known beforehand that large format scans are made possible only with this particular, hidden setup. The error message does not make this evident. Furthermore, one would scarcely assume different preferences to pertain to the same scanner driver depending on which program it is accessed by. Herein lies a lack of consistency regarding the programs, even if in the field, the digitalization of material at resolutions as high as 9600 ppi will probably be a rare case with with the CanoScan 9000F Mark II.

Reply to
Richard

Thanks.

Interesting reading.

I have the manual but it is remarkably reticent about the constraints on the DPI settings - just shows you where the dialogue box is and tells you to use it.

The review you quote also seems somewhat underwhelmed by the usability of the software!

My Image Garden seems to be very ...err.. Digital as currently promoted by the government and discussed at length in The Register. e.g.

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I will mention VueScan again, which bypasses all this Canon driver dross.

Anyway, old picture album scanning rolling along boringly so the next challenge is to scan some film at a decent resolution.

I wonder how average punters feel when they lash out for a high res scanner which refused point blank to go above 600 DPI using the supplied My Image Garden software?

Cheers

Dave R

Reply to
David

In article , David writes

Glad you're sorted and thanks for feeding back with your results.

One thing that does sound a little odd is your small file sizes, for

1200dpi they do seem awfully small for anything but the smallest prints or saving with heavy image compression. If you're saving as jpg then it would be a shame to be working at that level of detail and not saving at a quality level of at least 95 percent on quality, at certainly at the processing stage. Quality settings for batch are on the first Irfanview scanning dialogue where you choose between single and multiple scans, under Options, bottom right.
Reply to
fred

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