Recommendations on Fast Scanners?

[lighthouse]

One of the biggest limiting factors in auction posting is the time it takes to scan books. It's not a big deal if you're listing five or ten books a week, but when you get in a decent supply, the time can really add up.

 

I was just wondering if my fellow forum-ites had recommendations on scanners that are faster than the rest. It seems like all the money in the scanner manufacturing business goes into higher dpi, which is useless for auctions, since screen resolution is only 72dpi anyway. I was curious whether anyone had found scanners with faster optics?

 

For reference, I own five different scanners, purchased over the last six years at prices ranging from $30 to $180. My fastest turnaround time comes from the cheapest of the bunch (and one of the oldest) which sees a time of 47 seconds from beginning of scan to beginning of next scan, including file naming and reduction to 75 dpi. My other four range from 55 seconds to 93 seconds per scan. I'd love to find a scanner that couldn't find 600dpi to save its life but scanned like the dickens...

[aardvark88]

Have had problems w/ Canon scanners turning cgc labels VERY blurry. Now using a HP Scanjet 4400c (about $65 US) which is MUCH better than my old Canon. Brighter & faster scans, but I have not really timed it. Not doing a hi-volume of eBay ads this week.

[OldGuy]

This may be a stupid question, but it has to be asked. Some (if not all) of the scanners you've used are USB and not serial port right?

[lighthouse]

All of them have been USB... But that hasn't stopped two of them from stirring up memories of the Commodore 1541 disk drive....

[aardvark88]

Yes, HP scanjet is usb. Takes a minute to warm up the scanner lamp when fresh out of the box for test scans.

[fantastic_four]

Scanning does need to get faster, but higher resolution isn't useless. And not all displays are at 72 dpi; it depends on the resolution you have Windows set to as to how many dots there are per screen inch and the size of your monitor. The higher you set the resolution, the more dots there are per inch. Most people don't do it because it makes everything on the screen too small without fiddling with custom Windows display settings, but you can actually set many modern monitors to 2048 x 1536 if you want to.

[Gorgo]

USB is the only way to fly, no rebooting to install, small & easy hook up.

[comicinvestor-migration]

I've got an ultra-expensve HP, along with more mid-range Canon and Acer models, and to tell the truth, the Acer BU is a real beast and super fast.

[OldGuy]

CI,

 

Would you mind posting the model number of the Acer? It's time for me to buy another scanner and I'd like to add the one your talking about to my research list..

[comicinvestor-migration]

It's a 640BU, though the 640U is the same basic scanner without some of the email/automatic-send functions.

[lighthouse]

My Acer 620U is my second fastest scanner, clocking a turnaround of 55 seconds. I have scanners from Umax, Astra, HP, and Canon, with my long-discontinued-model Astra being the fastest.

 

I think the optic pass is actually faster with the Acer, but the Astra can be set to dump its output as a 75dpi jpeg file directly to the hard drive with no intervening software adjustments. So it spits out an upload-ready 120K scan every 47 seconds. All my other scanners either require scanning at one resolution then reducing to another, or else conversion from another file type to jpeg.

 

If they can make scanners that cost $100 and scan at 3600dpi, why can't they make one that can scan its bed at 75-150dpi in 10 seconds? I would happily pay $300-500 for a scanner that was significant faster, since I would make that money back in free time within a month or two...

[comicinvestor-migration]

Well, I just scanned a comic at 150 dpi, RGB color and 100% scale and it took me 24 seconds from start to finish.

[lighthouse]

Well if that includes file naming and converting the type to jpeg, I may need to pick up a 640BU. Because the ability to scan 125 comics an hour (including the occasional pause) instead of 70 would make a huge difference...

 

Thanks for the input CI.

[comicinvestor-migration]

You're talking software then, and I can set many programs to auto-save and name them incrementally from 0001 to 9999.

 

That's kind of a non-issue, since the only part that is inherent on the scanner hardware is the scanning and the depositing of the image file to the desktop. After that, it's software-city and I use 5-10 different imaging programs, all with different features.

 

So if you want to compare scanners, then only post the actual scan speeds and leave out the mouse-work, typing and CPU speed when converting images.

[Tomega]

One of the biggest limiting factors in auction posting is the time it takes to scan books. It's not a big deal if you're listing five or ten books a week, but when you get in a decent supply, the time can really add up.

 

I was just wondering if my fellow forum-ites had recommendations on scanners that are faster than the rest. It seems like all the money in the scanner manufacturing business goes into higher dpi, which is useless for auctions, since screen resolution is only 72dpi anyway. I was curious whether anyone had found scanners with faster optics?

 

For reference, I own five different scanners, purchased over the last six years at prices ranging from $30 to $180. My fastest turnaround time comes from the cheapest of the bunch (and one of the oldest) which sees a time of 47 seconds from beginning of scan to beginning of next scan, including file naming and reduction to 75 dpi. My other four range from 55 seconds to 93 seconds per scan. I'd love to find a scanner that couldn't find 600dpi to save its life but scanned like the dickens...

 

Yes, this is an old thread but I just picked up a new scanner and I just wanted to share how impressed I am with it. It is the Umax Powerlook 2100XL . In terms of speed it just about blows everything away that I have used before. This scanner uses a SCSI interface so the transfer is very,very fast. It handles up to a 12" by 17" so it will handle even CGC magazines. The software bundle is second to none ( mine came with Magic Scan, Adobe Photoshop full edition, Cumulus, and Binuscan Photoperfect.) What a difference in scans - no noise or artifacting and the color depth is great ( much better then the Powerlook 1000.) I have a HP as well that has a "claimed" higher hardware resolution but it's scans are no where as near nice as the scans from the 2100XL. Scan times are about 15 seconds at 300 DPI into Photoshop. This scanner is not for everyone - it is heavy (about 50lbs), takes up quite a bit of space, and is not in everyone's price range ( if a Giant Size X-men #1 in nm is not in your price range neither is this scanner.) Beyond that, this is the nicest scanner I have seen and if you keep your eye out on eBay - you can pick it up for a great price.