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Advice on a scanner

Thu Jul 26, 2012 7:00 am

Hello everyone.

I am thinking about purchasing a new scanner mainly for photos. I now have an Epson Artisan printer with a flatbed scanner. It works well, but when I have a project that has hundreds of photos, it becomes a bit annoying scanning 3 or 4 photos at a time, or even when I am dealing with multiple sizes of photos, I play "Tetris" to fit as many photos on the flatbed as I can. What I would like is a scanner that will accept a stack of multiple size photos and automatically scan each one individually.

Does anyone here have advice on such a device. I do not mind spending money, but I do not want to "Bust the Bank" when purchasing it.

Thanks in advance on your help.

Mohamed

Re: Advice on a scanner

Thu Jul 26, 2012 8:31 pm

They exist but they're going to expensive (a few hundred to several thousand $). My research was a couple years ago and out of date now -- just google for "scanners with automatic feeders." Be careful, many of those are intended for documents and not photos. As I recall, those with feeders for photos would only handle a specific size of print or a few sizes with each load having to be a single size. Reliability of the feed mechanism on many didn't seem very good--jams were frequent unless the photos were in really good condition and flat, and the pictures I was doing didn't fit that at all.

Good luck and if you settle on something, let us know both what you got and how it worked out.

Dick

Re: Advice on a scanner

Fri Jul 27, 2012 7:11 am

http://tinyurl.com/cwcll4b

I've used an older version of this and it was great for thousands of photos.
It takes approx. 3 seconds per photo.

Ron

Re: Advice on a scanner

Fri Jul 27, 2012 8:26 am

Dick and Ron....Thanks for your replies.

Ron, does this have an automatic feeder? I did not see one.

Re: Advice on a scanner

Fri Jul 27, 2012 8:50 am

No and that scanner is quite limited in what it will do (e.g., 5x7 is the largest print) and reviews show quality issues. Don't expect miracles from any scanner in that price range -- the scanner you have is superior to that one and, IMHO, pretty much anything in that price range. What you're looking for will, I think, fall into the office products or professional use range.

Dick

Re: Advice on a scanner

Fri Jul 27, 2012 9:46 am

Dick is, of course, correct in his comments. However, BIG HOWEVER, all of those I have scanned photos and made slideshows for are more interested in memories than elite quality. I have an Epson Artison 835 and an Epson 9490 and both do a fantastic job in my strictly amateur opinion. I use all 3 scanners depending on the current circumstances at the time of the scanning. I can scan on the Wolverine faster than scanning several and separating them manually with the other scanners. As to quality, I read all the skeptics when purchasing my older Wolverine and they must have considerably better eyesight than my 20/10. Anyway, I thought I would throw it out in case it might help.
I probably should add that I'm normally working with quite old photos or negatives so work pretty hard to just make the quality acceptable as opposed to great.

Ron

Re: Advice on a scanner

Fri Jul 27, 2012 9:49 am

Should have said an Epson 4490. Sorry.

Ron

Re: Advice on a scanner

Sat Aug 04, 2012 6:31 pm

Last year I bought the Kodak PS410 it is very fast and seems to do a good job scanning. I am not sure if you can still buy it, it is a little on the costly side but if you need to burn though many boxes of photos or have clients that have a lot of photos that need scanned this can do the trick
http://graphics.kodak.com/DocImaging/US/en/Products/Photo_Scanning/Photo_Scanning_Systems_Family/Picture_Saver_Scanning_System_PS810_PS410/index.htm

Paul B

Re: Advice on a scanner

Sat Aug 04, 2012 9:18 pm

Something to be aware of if you are running a 64 bit OS - most of the manufacturers have quit supporting their scanners (since there is little demand - everybody has gone digital cameras these days) and as such, make sure you can find drivers for your scanner. VueScan from Hamrick.com is one option that talks to most scanners and runs on 64 bit, but it is a consideration.

mikey
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