Scanning Help

Hope you graphic geniuses can help me with a simple (I hope!) fix.

So, I hooked up my Canon MX850 for the first time to my Mac. I had only used it for photocopying and printing before this.

I am trying to make some really good looking "cover art" for a bunch of CDs I am ripping. I was using ImageCapture to scan at 2400dpi.

Anyway, the images come up decent, but first of all they are HUGE. Even though it says the size is 4.5inch by 4.5inch when I open in preview, they show up on the screen about twice that big when viewing under "actual size".

Secondly, while the scans aren't terrible, it looks somewhat pixelated. It's hard to explain exactly, but when I look at the original CD insert that I'm scanning there is smooth color like a photograph, but the scans have a slightly banded color.

I thought maybe it was because 2400 dpi was too much, but when I scan at lower DPI the image looks worse as far as the color banding goes.
What do I need to do in order to get a good reproduction of CD covers for iTunes?

 

Well that's the thing. If decent sized ones existed I would.

It's mainly for a lot of underground stuff and either it completely doesn't exist or its tiny and therefore terrible for coverflow etc.

Also, I want to scan all the inserts including back etc.

 

I dont really have different options aside from color photo, black & white photo, and text.

I switched to 300DPI and the "banding" gets worse.

It's hard to explain how it looks but its like if you printed up a photographic image onto cloth and you can see the texture of the cloth.

 

you're the man

exactly what is happening to my scans!

I have been using Apple Image Capture which is built into Snow Leopard. I don't see any options like that, but maybe if I can download some Canon scanning software from their website I can try.


Thanks again for your help thus far.

 

Ok so I found some Canon scanning software MP Navigator EX (wow the interface is bad!)

I used the descreening option and it helped a bit, but the original still looks far better.

Is this just something I have to deal with when scanning from printed, non-photo paper?

Is the automatic demoire just not effective enough and would doing it manually in photoshop produce better results?

 

Ok, well again thanks for all the advice.


I'm gonna mess around with the scans in photoshop and see what results I can get.

Was a bit hesitant to do that because I only have photoshop on my old, slow powerbook g4—but looks like its the only option.