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Participant
October 5, 2019
Question

Is there such a thing as a "Prosumer" (faster) flatbed scanner. Can't afford true "commercal grade"

  • October 5, 2019
  • 1 reply
  • 419 views

With several thousand documents and photographs that I need to digitize, and with the speed of typical home user scanners that are enough to make a cold ketchup bottle envious, maybe there's something out there that would meet me at least half way.  Is there, what I would call, a "Prosumer" scanner that is a lot faster than ordinary consumer grade scanners?  The scanner would  probably have a fibre optic connection. .Can't afford commercial grade high speed scanner, but know that I'll have to spend some reasonable $ to get what I need.

 

In the immortal words of that famous philosopher, J. Norman Farquahar:  "H-A-L-P!"

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1 reply

Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com
Legend
October 5, 2019

Yes, there is.

For photos and all-purpose scanning, we use and recommend the upper-middle end of Epson's flatbed line:

Such as:

The color fidelity and software is excellent on all of these models, whether scanning prints, slides, or transparencies.

If you'll scan transparencies, definitely buy the scanner's matching film holders for file transparencies, slides, 2x2, etc.

Some also have an optional document scanner, but those tend to jam a lot on flatbeds, regardless of the brand and pricetag.

 

For documents, we recommend getting a good mid-range document scanner. They are faster and tuned for that type of work. Often they come with management software that recognizes the type of documents (receipt or tech report) and automatically OCRs it and saves it in a default location.

Our recommendations:

 

When you purchase a document scanner, also get the maintenance kit with cleaner solution and cleaner paper (it's a felt-like thick sheet you run through the feeders to clean off the gunk that accumulates).

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