should have sent this to the list... allan
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: m. allan noah <[email protected]> Date: Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 9:55 AM Subject: Re: [sane-devel] drum scanners or high-end flatbeds: any hope? To: David Heinrich <dh003i at gmail.com> On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 11:37 PM, David Heinrich <dh003i at gmail.com> wrote: > > > On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 8:28 PM, m. allan noah <kitno455 at gmail.com> wrote: >> >> On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 6:38 PM, David Heinrich <dh003i at gmail.com> wrote: >> > Ok, thanks to the suggestion by Allan, I'm e-mailing with this >> > suggestion...I may be able to eventually buy one of these high-end >> > flat-beds >> > or drum-scanners (that is, high-end compared to the Epson V750, not >> > high-end >> > as in the $80k Aztek Premier) and have it shipped to a developer. >> > >> > Developers, what are you suggestions for what may be a good thing to >> > look >> > for? The Howtek 4500 drum seems to be commonly available, along with the >> > Creo Eversmart flatbed series (I think Creo is now owned by Kodak). >> > However, >> > even the brand name of these companies is not mentioned on the >> > sane-project >> > website. Of the high-end flatbed or drum scanners listed on the Large >> > Format >> > scanner comparison page, only the Microtek brand are mentioned on the >> > sane >> > page (and not any of the scanners relevant to me scanning in 4x5 inch >> > and >> > 8x10 inch film). Someone on LF forum suggested, however, that it might >> > be >> > easier to adapt a driver for a low-end scanner of the same brand to a >> > high-end flatbed or drum (by high-end, I mean pro scanners with real >> > resolutions of 2500 dpi or higher, not marketing hype of 6400 dpi). >> > >> > So, any suggestions? >> >> Required: >> 1. It should use some standard port (i.e. SCSI). >> 2. It should have a complete copy of the windows software and any >> dongles required to run it. >> >> Extremely helpful: >> 1. protocol documents from the maker. >> 2. other user documents >> 3. any calibration targets >> >> I doubt this class of machines will really share any brains with their >> cheaper brothers, so don't worry about sticking with a particular >> brand. The SCSI protocol is more likely to enforce consistency than >> the name plate. > > > Thank you very much for the information. I'll consider that when looking at > what comes up for the drum-scanners in the future. > > In the meantime, the support for the Epson 4990, V700, and V750 is listed as > "good", which is defined as all necessary functionality being there, but > some advanced functionality missing. How would one find out what > functionality is missing? (might it be the ICE, which "removes" scratches > via I think an IR light detecting them). Most scanner 'features' like ICE on consumer grade stuff are actually software features. It is a safe bet that those things won't work with sane. In the case of IR, the current sane API only supports RGB data, but there is a (slow) move underway to extend the API for IR use. The epson2 backend already exposes a prototype version of this support, if you are willing to build from source. It is not supported by all front-ends yet. Actually doing something with the IR data is an exercise for the reader :) allan -- "The truth is an offense, but not a sin" -- "The truth is an offense, but not a sin"
