Getting a new scanner that does color/greyscale well?

[melfra]

First of all, I'm sorry for this since there's already a scanner topic on the first page. It seems to have gotten on to another subject, so I thought it'd be best to make my own topic. =X

I do a lot of multipurpose scanning for my group, including related materials like furoku and magazine ads for our releases. Our current scanner is an HP all in one and the scan quality is just all kinds of meh on both color and greyscale stuff, so I was hoping to get a flatbed, but I want something that will be worth the money and degrade gracefully, if you get my drift. Are there any really good scanners that do color art particularly well but still work well for manga? Price is kind of an issue, but since I'm splitting the cost in half with another member, we can take into account a somewhat higher price than the norm, although I'm thinking $300 might be the max. If it matters any, a good portion of our scans come from monthly magazines, so I'm not sure if that makes a difference in scanning or anything, but I would like to mention that editing takes forever because of this ;_;

Thanks to anyone who took the time to read this, an I apologize if it was inappropriate to post it here.

[GGpX]

Quoted from the other thread.

I bought a CanoScan 8800F for the purpose of scanning manga. It's a great piece of hardware. I tend to find that scanning at an uber-resolution gets a clearer image which makes downsizing still look great. Generally, I scan at 600dpi and save at 300dpi but I'm starting to take a likening to 1200dpi -- again, I find a noticeable difference with my scans when I downsize to 300dpi rather than scan at 300dpi.

Also, hooray for saving greyscale as that; greyscale.

Also, it'll always look faded out to some extent, which is why you've gotta master leveling (in particular, using Curves in order to fully maximise the mid-ranges).

If you can, try to apply a little bit of pressure on all four corners of the page. Keep it even. I find the board on the scanner is too soft and pages still warp every now and then without putting some sort of weight (nothing too heavy!) on it. In my case, I just use my external hard drive ^^;

One last thing is that I always use a bit of black cardboard behind the page so ink on the other side of the page is kept to a minimum during scan. It'll help make the page you're scanning a bit clearer and sharper, too.

Please find attached a scan I've done fairly recently (600dpi scan // 150dpi save due to bandwidth).

Edit: I just did a very quick 2-minute job on your scan. See the second attachment for the results.

I have the CanoScan 8400F. It works great.

Get the 8800F. You won't regret it.

[unok-kun]

I once tried to clean something scanned with an HP all-in-one and it was impossible to level: the greys were always too light and when I try to level it, the borders of black zones always get pixeled.

Get a new scanner. It'll be better.

[melfra]

Thanks for the replies!

I'm seriously looking at the 8800F now after all this talk I've heard about the whole scanner series, but like I said, I want something that will hold up well for normal use too. Happen to know how it (or others like it) hold up with color images?

Anyway, the all in one (actually, it's an officejet) is pretty subpar; I mean, I never can get my scans to look the way I want. Just to get an idea of what my scanner's doing right now (without any edits to the images), here are three scans- one was originally printed on black ink, another with blue ink, and a third full color image: none of which have been touched in any way. Disregarding that they're terribly dusty and I haven't even run them through NeatImage, am I just being too picky with my current scanner or is there really a problem here? No one's ever made a comment about it to me, but I can't help but feel that something just isn't right, so I was hoping for a second opinion =/ (although I'm going to get a new scanner regardless)

[Digitalr]

put a black paper behind the paper you're scanning, and those scans are resized..

And err.. lol are you seriously doubting the quality of colourpages from a manga of a $200 scanner?

[melfra]

put a black paper behind the paper you're scanning, and those scans are resized..

And err.. lol are you seriously doubting the quality of colourpages from a manga of a $200 scanner?

I already put a black page behind the pages, but the source magazine often imprints the ink from one page to the next. Kind of hard to explain, but it leaves an indentation. Since the pages were a bit too big to be posting I resized them and didn't mention that, sorry =X But I do scanning from other books too. Here's an example of a scan from an artbook done with the same scanner. I guess I'm a bit behind the times or something, but I didn't realize that $200 is top of the line these days =\ A scanner in my school library was going for $500 last year and I thought that was how much most were- or did you mean that $200 is a cheap deal?

[GGpX]

Thanks for the replies!

I'm seriously looking at the 8800F now after all this talk I've heard about the whole scanner series, but like I said, I want something that will hold up well for normal use too. Happen to know how it (or others like it) hold up with color images?

Anyway, the all in one (actually, it's an officejet) is pretty subpar; I mean, I never can get my scans to look the way I want. Just to get an idea of what my scanner's doing right now (without any edits to the images), here are three scans- one was originally printed on black ink, another with blue ink, and a third full color image: none of which have been touched in any way. Disregarding that they're terribly dusty and I haven't even run them through NeatImage, am I just being too picky with my current scanner or is there really a problem here? No one's ever made a comment about it to me, but I can't help but feel that something just isn't right, so I was hoping for a second opinion =/ (although I'm going to get a new scanner regardless)

Download these three oneshots.

http://www.mediafire.com/?mk1ggmz0wmo Alice in Mirrorland
http://www.mediafire.com/?mwnnjzxyuqw Blame²
http://www.mediafire.com/?nw2ngozjmyy Diadem

These three oneshots were scanned by yours truly at 600dpi from the Mandala #2 magazine.

If you want to make sure that the colors are good on the pages, check these out. Especially Blame² & Diadem. I scanned those with Cano8400F and the one I'm suggesting you buy is the upgraded version of it. So, yeah, you'll get good results, guaranteed.

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I already put a black page behind the pages, but the source magazine often imprints the ink from one page to the next. Kind of hard to explain, but it leaves an indentation. Since the pages were a bit too big to be posting I resized them and didn't mention that, sorry =X But I do scanning from other books too. Here's an example of a scan from an artbook done with the same scanner. I guess I'm a bit behind the times or something, but I didn't realize that $200 is top of the line these days =\ A scanner in my school library was going for $500 last year and I thought that was how much most were- or did you mean that $200 is a cheap deal?

Well, for scanning manga, 8800F probably the best quality-price scanner you can get. Sure, there are $500+ scanners out there, but there's barely any difference--if any at all--on your pages and those scanners offer a lot of useless stuff that you'll probably never use, not to mention the very big pricetag.

[melfra]

If you want to make sure that the colors are good on the pages, check these out. Especially Blame² & Diadem. I scanned those with Cano8400F and the one I'm suggesting you buy is the upgraded version of it. So, yeah, you'll get good results, guaranteed.

Holy crap, you weren't kidding. Thank you for all your help, I'm pretty much sold on the 8800 now. The only problem seems to be finding a store that actually has it in stock!