A3 Flatbed Scanner Recommendations

[wiltw]

There's a FF-680W refurb on Epson's site for $400.

I'm not sure how happy I'd be with only 600 DPI, though. Maybe I should try running a photo or two through my Fuji ScanSnap 1300 (also 600 DPI).

My Canon 8800F was relative inexpensive when purchased new. Even today it can be had in the range of $120 - $560
It does a great job with both prints (such as 600 dpi scan) and negs/slides (scans up to 4800 dpi). While driver software is not provided for win10, the win8 driver works just fine with win10 PCs.

For scanning software, either the Canon-provided MP Navigator, or VuewScan work just fine.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

I'm going to hijack this thread a bit instead of starting a new thread if OP doesn't mind.

I've inherited my family collection of negatives and prints. I've worked my way through most of the negatives but I need to scan the prints as many of them do not have negatives associated with them. Most are smaller prints and snapshots. Will a basic Twain/document scanner do the job or does someone have suggestions for me to get something that'll do a far better job. It's going to be a tedious job but someone's got to to it and that someone is going to be me.

My V600 does a nice job with prints. See my previous post about its ICE and color restoration features.

Using the Epsonscan software that comes with the V600, ICE corrects creases, wrinkles, tears to a large extent on the prints. It takes twice as long to scan because it scans once for the picture normally., Then it scan a second time using infrared. Epsonscan software than compares the two scans subtracting out the creases. ICE also works when scanning color negative film. It won't work with Kodachrome color or BW negative films.

Color Restoration and Back Lighting on the V600 will help restore faded and discolored prints. The V600 does a pretty good job with that.

If you have 4x6" prints. Scan at 600dpi 48 bit color. That would give you a final file that's 3600 x 2400 which would pretty much fill up a 4K UHD TV screen which has 3840x2160. 600 may be too large for bigger prints as the files get huge and the time to scan increases. You might be better with 300dpi scans but you can test both resolutions to see which works best for you. Old prints don't give that much resolution anyway. So you can scan with less resolution and up-rez in post processing.

 

[Cholentpot]

My V600 does a nice job with prints. See my previous post about its ICE and color restoration features.

Using the Epsonscan software that comes with the V600, ICE corrects creases, wrinkles, tears to a large extent on the prints. It takes twice as long to scan because it scans once for the picture normally., Then it scan a second time using infrared. Epsonscan software than compares the two scans subtracting out the creases. ICE also works when scanning color negative film. It won't work with Kodachrome color or BW negative films.

Color Restoration and Back Lighting on the V600 will help restore faded and discolored prints. The V600 does a pretty good job with that.

If you have 4x6" prints. Scan at 600dpi 48 bit color. That would give you a final file that's 3600 x 2400 which would pretty much fill up a 4K UHD TV screen which has 3840x2160. 600 may be too large for bigger prints as the files get huge and the time to scan increases. You might be better with 300dpi scans but you can test both resolutions to see which works best for you. Old prints don't give that much resolution anyway. So you can scan with less resolution and up-rez in post processing.

Family member of mine is the editor of some magazine or another. We spoke, they said that 600dpi is more than enough and recommended scanning at 300dpi.

I like the FF because of the hopper. Makes things much faster in theory.

 

[yeolde]

there is only two options for a A3 scanners - all high end
A Scitex Creo Kodak scanners - the best flatbed scanners ever built but expensive
Epson perfection 1200 - you still can buy it brand new, but quality of the image is worse than Creo

But this is the scaners with autofocus, this is most important!

 

[yeolde]

Also Fuji lanovia, heidelberg 4200 but these are rarities

 

[wiltw]

There's a FF-680W refurb on Epson's site for $400.

I'm not sure how happy I'd be with only 600 DPI, though. Maybe I should try running a photo or two through my Fuji ScanSnap 1300 (also 600 DPI).

For scanning prints, high ppi is not necessary. For scanning negs or transparencies, you need high ppi.

• If print was 8x10, at 300 ppi the final result is 2400 x 3000 pixel digital image
• If neg is 135 format, at 4800 ppi the final result is aboutr 4500 x 8600 pixel digital image