Well I got the thing set up and tried most of the functions. It prints fine,
scans documents ok but when it comes to photos the scans are absolutely
crap. Dull and full of artifacts, i.e. speckles everywhere. I rescanned a
couple of photos I'd first done with my old 1998 Plustek Win 95 scanner
which sadly won't work with XP and the difference was staggering. So I took
it back to Tesco and got another. Exactly the same. So what does it take to
get a decent photo scanner built in to a printer?

Here's the original 1998 scan already converted to a jpg.

http://www.pumaracing.co.uk/TBs%20Plustek.jpg

Here'e the Canon scan as a full quality bmp file.

http://www.pumaracing.co.uk/TBs%20Canon.bmp

Does anyone think the Canon scan is even remotely acceptable?
--
Dave Baker

On Sun, 26 Jun 2011 11:37:27 +0100, Dave Baker wrote:

Here's the original 1998 scan already converted to a jpg.

http://www.pumaracing.co.uk/TBs%20Plustek.jpg

Here'e the Canon scan as a full quality bmp file.

http://www.pumaracing.co.uk/TBs%20Canon.bmp

Does anyone think the Canon scan is even remotely acceptable?

Difficult to tell:

The Plustek is only 775x587 and to my eyes has a magenta colour cast
and an over exposed background.

The Canon is 3568 x 2424 has better colour rendition and correct
exposure of the background.

If I resize the canon image to 775xwhat ever maintains the aspect
ratio it may be slightly sharper but of course the source is a
bitmap not a jpg so some softening is to be expected. Of the two
images I prefer the canon but not having the orginal print to compare
against that is a totally subjective opinon.

--
Cheers
Dave.

Dave Baker wrote:
Well I got the thing set up and tried most of the functions. It prints fine,
scans documents ok but when it comes to photos the scans are absolutely
crap. Dull and full of artifacts, i.e. speckles everywhere. I rescanned a
couple of photos I'd first done with my old 1998 Plustek Win 95 scanner
which sadly won't work with XP and the difference was staggering. So I took
it back to Tesco and got another. Exactly the same. So what does it take to
get a decent photo scanner built in to a printer?

Here's the original 1998 scan already converted to a jpg.

http://www.pumaracing.co.uk/TBs%20Plustek.jpg

Here'e the Canon scan as a full quality bmp file.

http://www.pumaracing.co.uk/TBs%20Canon.bmp

Does anyone think the Canon scan is even remotely acceptable?
As far as the speckles go-

Maybe the glass or picture is dusty? It's been known for dust to get in
the inside of the scanner glass, and that could look like the artifacts
you mention. They don't look like typical scanner noise.

Without comparing it to the original, I'd say the Plutek scan was less
accurate, but that's like saying this apple is better than that banana.

The exposure, contrast and colour balance can be set in the Canon driver.

The Plustek would have been lucky to make 300dpi optically, whereas the
Canon is scanning at a much higher optical resolution, so faults on the
original print will show up more. Check it with a magnifying glass.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

On Sun, 26 Jun 2011 12:45:46 +0100, John Williamson wrote:

They don't look like typical scanner noise.

The surface the manifold is laying on looks like some form of brushed
metal, as I see it the "noise" in those areas are the "brush" marks.

--
Cheers
Dave.

Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Sun, 26 Jun 2011 12:45:46 +0100, John Williamson wrote:

They don't look like typical scanner noise.

The surface the manifold is laying on looks like some form of brushed
metal, as I see it the "noise" in those areas are the "brush" marks.

Which doesn't explain the speckles on the manifold area, which look like
dust and small lengths of fibre on the scanner glass. Zoom in to show
the Canon scan pixel for pixel, and you'll see. Detail of that size
would have been removed by the reduction in size and compression to a
..jpg on the earliier scan.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

On Sun, 26 Jun 2011 13:36:15 +0100, John Williamson wrote:

They don't look like typical scanner noise.

The surface the manifold is laying on looks like some form of
brushed
metal, as I see it the "noise" in those areas are the "brush"
marks.

Which doesn't explain the speckles on the manifold area, ...

Has another look, ha yes got distracted by the colour cast and
exposure of the Plustek image...

... which look like dust and small lengths of fibre on the scanner
glass.

I'd agree with that. The white speckles are not single pixels (this
is bitmap image remember). Take a look at them in the area bounded
by:

1221,1984 1356,1892 a lovely twisty white fibre and a hair sticking
up from the manifold.

or

1019,2258 1086,2204 a black twisty fibre overthe background.

One may have to fiddle with those co-ordinates the are supposed to be
upper left/lower right but the numbers might depend on where your and
my image viewing packages start counting from...

--
Cheers
Dave.

In article , John Williamson
writes
Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Sun, 26 Jun 2011 12:45:46 +0100, John Williamson wrote:

They don't look like typical scanner noise.

The surface the manifold is laying on looks like some form of brushed
metal, as I see it the "noise" in those areas are the "brush" marks.

Which doesn't explain the speckles on the manifold area, which look like
dust and small lengths of fibre on the scanner glass. Zoom in to show
the Canon scan pixel for pixel, and you'll see. Detail of that size
would have been removed by the reduction in size and compression to a
.jpg on the earliier scan.


Those specs look very much like dust to me, the res is so good you can
see they have gritty irregular shapes, there are minute fibre flecks
too. The only negative it that they are fairly evenly (albeit randomly)
spaced over the whole of the scan. If that's on the original pic then
it's very dirty.

Btw, that larger image (TBs Canon.bmp) is misnamed jpg, not a bmp.
--
fred
FIVE TV's superbright logo - not the DOG's, it's ********

On Sun, 26 Jun 2011 14:12:46 +0100, fred wrote:

The only negative it that they are fairly evenly (albeit randomly)
spaced over the whole of the scan.

There are far less at the left hand end of the cast manifold than the
right.

Btw, that larger image (TBs Canon.bmp) is misnamed jpg, not a bmp.

I spotted that but don't know the difference in the header between a
bmp and jpg. Looking at the file size it is compressed, 3 bytes a
pixel at that resolution should be about 25Mbytes not the 1Mbyte it
is.

--
Cheers
Dave.

In article ,
Dave Baker wrote:
Well I got the thing set up and tried most of the functions. It prints fine,
scans documents ok but when it comes to photos the scans are absolutely
crap. Dull and full of artifacts, i.e. speckles everywhere. I rescanned a
couple of photos I'd first done with my old 1998 Plustek Win 95 scanner
which sadly won't work with XP and the difference was staggering. So I took
it back to Tesco and got another. Exactly the same. So what does it take to
get a decent photo scanner built in to a printer?

Here's the original 1998 scan already converted to a jpg.

http://www.pumaracing.co.uk/TBs%20Plustek.jpg

Here'e the Canon scan as a full quality bmp file.

http://www.pumaracing.co.uk/TBs%20Canon.bmp

Does anyone think the Canon scan is even remotely acceptable?

Try reducing the resolution of the Canon to the same as you used with the
Plustek. Scanning a print at too high a resolution can produce all sorts
of artifacts.

--
*If God had wanted me to touch my toes, he would have put them on my knees

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"John Rumm" wrote in message
o.uk...
On 26/06/2011 11:37, Dave Baker wrote:
Well I got the thing set up and tried most of the functions. It prints
fine,
scans documents ok but when it comes to photos the scans are absolutely
crap. Dull and full of artifacts, i.e. speckles everywhere. I rescanned a
couple of photos I'd first done with my old 1998 Plustek Win 95 scanner
which sadly won't work with XP and the difference was staggering. So I
took
it back to Tesco and got another. Exactly the same. So what does it take
to
get a decent photo scanner built in to a printer?

Here's the original 1998 scan already converted to a jpg.

http://www.pumaracing.co.uk/TBs%20Plustek.jpg

Here'e the Canon scan as a full quality bmp file.

http://www.pumaracing.co.uk/TBs%20Canon.bmp

Does anyone think the Canon scan is even remotely acceptable?

Yup, its actually vastly better than the plustek IMHO. However you may
need to adjust your methods for working with a scanner that is actually
more revealing than the plustek.

If you want a plustek look to your scan, here is how I did it:

A dust'n'scratches filter to loose some picture detail and have the specs
away. I then leveled the image to have away any colour bias from the
canon, before boosting the brightness to overexpose the image and solarise
(i.e. lose) detail in the light areas permanently. I tweaked the contrast
to lighten the darker areas a bit and create the slightly washed out look
of the plustek. Next I altered the colour balance and stuck in a large
shift to the magenta in the midtones, and small one in the highlights.
Finally reduced it to the same size as the plustek scan and saved it as a
medium quality jpg to get that nice jpeg artifact thing going.

Here is the canon image that I have altered to make it more plustek like:

http://www.internode.co.uk/temp/TBs-...ustek-trea.jpg

Oh damn. So I took a perfectly good scanner back to Tesco then it seems.
Drat. I'm sure they'll cope though and I'll have to practice my scanning
technique.
--
Dave Baker

Well as suggested I tried different scanning resolutions. 75 dpi was pretty
awful but 200 gave me this.

http://www.pumaracing.co.uk/TBs%20200%20dpi_0003.jpg

I think that's about as nice as one could expect. So do I feel like an idiot
for returning a scanner that was actually better than my old one or what?
Live and learn I guess.
--
Dave Baker

Dave Baker wrote:
Well as suggested I tried different scanning resolutions. 75 dpi was pretty
awful but 200 gave me this.

http://www.pumaracing.co.uk/TBs%20200%20dpi_0003.jpg

I think that's about as nice as one could expect. So do I feel like an idiot
for returning a scanner that was actually better than my old one or what?
Live and learn I guess.

It depends on what you're using it for. Personally, I'm always looking
for sharper, up to the point where I used to focus on the grain in the
film when I was printing.

Personally, I scan at the highest resolution available, then use
manipulation software to improve the image. The same with photographs.
The files I post are a *lot* smaller than the ones I work with.

Except when I'm scanning summat to fax it, then it's 200dpi and
greyscale, turned to two-tone black and white.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

On 26/06/2011 15:57, John Rumm wrote:
A dust'n'scratches filter to loose some picture detail and have the
specs away.

Be careful with those. I was pulling in a load of slides, and suddenly
realised the filter was removing all the sheep from the fells!

Andy