Scanner for Comics

[NeutraFace x64]

Hi there!

I will be scanning my comics collection (I will unstaple it), and what is the BEST TYPE of scanner to use? Preferably it will be Canon, but what type? Is there a scanner that can work like a printer but the other way around? Like, you insert your document into the scanner (the way you do it to a printer)? And if so, does this provide the best quality for my comics collection? Thank you.

Cheers!

 

[justperry]

Sure there are scanners like that but they cost an arm and a leg and are mostly used in (bigger) companies.
We had one (Had because I don't work there anymore) in our workspace, that device costs 1000's if not 10.000 of $$$.

 

[Macsonic]

You can check out Epson Scanners. In my former office where I used to work we use Epson to scan high resolution graphics and the colors and images reproduced are fine. Some models can be checked HERE I think the Epson Perfection V33 or V330 works well with your comic scanning as their prices are affordable. Epson also has an A3 size scanner that can scan tabloids but I think that may be too expensive for your purpose.

 

[jimthing]

Yeah the flatbeds are basically all professional high-end machines, costing 1000's, unfortunately.

My suggestion (if the pages fit for you), is to get an automatic document feeding scanner. The one I have is a Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500M (the "M" means it comes bundled with Adobe Acrobat For Mac, the non-M machine has the Acrobat For Windows — oh, and the M is white, the non-M black, but both machines actually work on Win/Mac).

There's also a newer Fujitsu ScanSnap iX500 (just one model aimed at both Win/Mac users, with WiFi abilities — VERY limited though, from my reading!), but only comes bundled with Acrobat for Win NOT a Mac version (dumb if you ask me — as Acrobat costs a LOT to buy separately if you need it!).

...however for OCR, all these machines do this WITHOUT needing to use a copy of Acrobat. Acrobat just offers higher end PDF editing facilities, than Preview can do.

Any of these works really well and REALLY fast (20+ pages a minute), and can do either PDF (with/without OCR) or JPG formats, and the file sizes are generally pretty small compared with the results from flatbeds.

The only problem, is that the feeder is for the narrower end of A4 paper (A4 is 210x297mm – this feeds-in on the 210mm width end). This means that you have to fold A3 size in half, then scan each half, and the scanner software can then (in theory) join the two halves together to give you an A3 scan.
Depending on your comic size (and how much you want to fold them), this may/may not work for you.

Check them out. Scanning stuff is great (when done quickly!). Hope this helps.