On Mon, 30 Aug 2010 17:32:10 +0100 Norman Silverstone <nor...@littletank.org> wrote:
> On Mon, 2010-08-30 at 13:32 +0100, Colin Law wrote: > > On 30 August 2010 13:17, Tim Powys-Lybbe <t...@southfarm.plus.com> wrote: > > > [...] > > > The OP says he wishes to scan slides. > > > > Actually he said he did *not* need to scan slides. > > > You are correct and my thanks to those who have replied so far. The > problem arises from the fact that I am required to take relatively > small, old photographs, scan them, in some cases carry out extensive > restoration work and finish with prints large enough to display on the > wall at an exhibition. I have a Lide 20 which does not fulfil the > requirements, I have tried, so I decided that I would go for a scanner > which will produce the necessary images. > > Norman > As I was at a local archive this morning, I enquired about their scanners. A couple of the staff were quite to show me what they used and did with them. Mostly they use a couple of exotically priced Agfa and Epson scanners connected to either Windows or Macs. But, they recently acquired a Mustek A3 2400 Pro at about £150, which they reckoned was quite adequate for photo scanning and documents in reasonable condition. Somebody there had used it with Fedora Linux and GIMP and, while it wasn’t up to the same standard and speed of the more expensive scanners, they used it to enlarge postcard sized and smaller photos to around A4 size OK. It was, however, a bit more problematic to set up with Linux than Mac or Windows. They also had an old Agfa Snapscan, like mine, which was still in use for basic document or photo scanning. There were various other scanners and specialist slide scanning kit as well. Their recommendation was that any 1200-1600dpi scanner around the £80+ mark should do. Generally any cheaper and the cogs and belts that drive thse things are not the best quality and tend to judder. This can give ripple like effects on the saved image. flatbed-scanner-review.org was recommended as an informative site. It was very interesting some of the things they w ere doing with old documents and photos, using both Photoshop and GIMP. For my self, I did look for an A3 size scanner a few years back and at that time they were all rather expensive but at £150 the Mustek looks like it may be a reasonable purchase. So thanks Norman for bringing this up, I wouldn’t have enquired today it you hadn’t. -- Steve Cook (Yorvyk) http://lubuntu.net -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
