Image Scanner...

[Mark Koenig]

Anyone have a recommendation on a digital scanner???

Need to pick one up before the laser gets here in a few weeks...

Thanks Mark.

[Gary Hair]

I have an HP 4490 Photo and it works quite well for me. It has a "scan to pdf" button on the front that I use quite a bit. I am eliminating paper copies as much as possible and it is really easy to just put a document in the scanner and hit that button. It's not the cheapest out there but not the most expensive either.

Gary

[Dave Jones]

You might contact Engraving Concepts and see if they have any more of the HP scanners that have the built in conversion to vector. That would be a really useful feature for engraving that I believe is no longer available on the new models.

http://www.engravingconcepts.com/

[Mike Null]

When I bought my laser 9 years ago one of my first purchases was an HP 6100 flat bed scanner. About $600 as I recall. I just gave it away a couple of months ago having rarely used it.

Now I use the scanner on my HP all in one which is a higher res. and works fine. The feature Dave mentions is nice but now not that much better than Power trace in Corel X3.

[Gary Hair]

The feature Dave mentions is nice but now not that much better than Power trace in Corel X3.

Or you can send it to Pete Bertrand and have him do the conversion for $12.00. I just did last week and I was amazed at how fast I got the file back.
http://home.wi.rr.com/bertrandart/vector_art.html

[Mark Koenig]

When I bought my laser 9 years ago one of my first purchases was an HP 6100 flat bed scanner. About $600 as I recall. I just gave it away a couple of months ago having rarely used it.

Now I use the scanner on my HP all in one which is a higher res. and works fine. The feature Dave mentions is nice but now not that much better than Power trace in Corel X3.

What "all in one" model did you buy???

[Joe Pelonio]

I've found that a $99 Canon (Canoscan) is as good as the more expensive one's I've had before, it gets power from the USB connection so doesn't need a power supply/plug, and goes to 1200 dpi which has always been sufficient for my needs.

[Mark Koenig]

Thanks Joe... I'll look into that!!!

[Mark Koenig]

P.S> Has anyone looked at this one??? Are "All in Ones" a serious compromise??? :confused:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16828104516&ATT=28-104-516&CMP=OTC-pr1c3grabb3r

[Dave Jones]

I have a Brother all in one, and while it's convenient to have printer, scanner, fax, etc.. all in one unit, scanning a page at 1200 dpi is extremely slow. I bought an $89 USB scanner that is screaming fast at 1200 dpi compared to the All in one.

[Mike Null]

My all in one is an HP 6110 about 2 to 3 years old. I do not do a lot of scanning but it has OCR which is more often useful than a vector scan.

It is primarily my fax and invoice printer and I would buy another in a minute.

It is slow on a full page scan of a color image but for b/w it's pretty quick.

[Frank Corker]

Personally I have an Epson 4490 PHOTO and it really is brilliant. My feelings are that if you want a scanner, buy a scanner, a printer, then a printer. The same thing goes for the digital camera and the video recorders. If you want a decent one, your should go for 'specific' and not combinations.

[Mike Null]

Frank:

Normally I would agree with your point. In this case it depends on how much you're going to use the item. In my case if I use the scanner more than once a month I'd be surprised.

Another note about the older HP scanners using the vector software--check to see if they require a scsi cable and card. These are expensive and hard to find as it is old technology.

[Patrick OBrien]

Amen to that! My USB Canoscan works great. One button funtionality, 1200 DPI. Less than $100

[Bill Cunningham]

I bought a Sharp JPX 330 about 10-12 years ago, weighs about 30 lbs, cost me over $1200.00 at Costco, built like a tank, and has never given me a minutes trouble in all that time.. Even found that when I upgraded to XP I made it work with a win2000 SCSI driver, I just had to buy a new card for the smaller cable connectors

[Ed Maloney]

Have the model numbers for the Canoscans?

[Mark Koenig]

Thanks for all of the suggestions from everyone... This board has become an invaluable source of information for a new laser owner...