My Scanner Falls Short

Godoftarot · Post by **Godoftarot** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 3:29 pm

Seriously. And I can't seem to find one that's any larger than an 8x11. I already feel so damn restrained, trying to draw what I want on 9x12 paper (or less, because I have to make sure certain things don't get cut off). My computer is an old peice of shit with lousy editing programs on it and it's has Windows Millenium on it. Naturally we don't have the money for a new one.
I seriously don't know what to do with this thing. It didn't bother me until my teacher had us drawing on 18x24 last semester but now I'm going batty.
Anyone know what I can do to get around that?

Smight · Post by **Smight** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 3:32 pm

YOu could try scanning in your images a quarter at a time and then piece them together in your editor.

BOMC · Post by **BOMC** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 4:21 pm

Perhaps draw one panel on each sheet, and then scan them and put them together.

Godoftarot · Post by **Godoftarot** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 6:21 pm

Again: Windows Millenium, no good editors. I'm using an ancient photo program that came with my ancient scanner.
My scanner, by the way, is 8 years old. >.<

Townie · Post by **Townie** » Thu Dec 30, 2004 2:38 pm

Scanners are some of the most base equipment you need. That's something I'd get the money to take care of well before any editing program. I used to have this craptacular printer/scanner (The printer died on it years ago but the scanner still worked) until I bought an HP for $65 bucks at Best Buy. It's starting to show signs of age a little and I'd like it to be bigger, but for $65 bucks I'm not complaining, especially since I only really use it for scanning in sketches anymore.

I suggest you start saving up and look on eBay. There are some deals to be had there. I had a limited budget and I stretched it out to get most of the supplies I needed this year. HP's a decent company for their cost, but I'm not sure if they make anything larger than 8.5x11 at a reasonable price. Umax makes some good quality large scanners, just make sure you don't get anything too old.

A quick glance through -
here's one that does 8x14 for about 20 bucks
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 77146&rd=1

Godoftarot · Post by **Godoftarot** » Thu Dec 30, 2004 2:52 pm

Townie wrote: I suggest you start saving up and look on eBay. There are some deals to be had there. I had a limited budget and I stretched it out to get most of the supplies I needed this year. HP's a decent company for their cost, but I'm not sure if they make anything larger than 8.5x11 at a reasonable price. Umax makes some good quality large scanners, just make sure you don't get anything too old.

I don't think I'd be able to find a scanner much older than mine.
Is it supposed to make that grinding noise?

Plothole · Post by **Plothole** » Thu Dec 30, 2004 5:51 pm

Mustek makes a A3 (11.7x17) size scanner for around $150:
http://www.pricegrabber.com/search_tech ... id=2266958

For 18x24, though, I find its more practical to just take a snapshot with my digital camera (mounted on a tripod, of course) .

Townie wrote:Umax makes some good quality large scanners, just make sure you don't get anything too old.

A quick glance through -
here's one that does 8x14 for about 20 bucks
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 77146&rd=1

A note on UMAX scanners: A lot of the older ones (including the one listed) connect via SCSI. Since PCs don't have SCSI ports, you'd need an adapter to connect such a scanner to your computer.

godoftarot wrote:Again: Windows Millenium, no good editors. I'm using an ancient photo program that came with my ancient scanner.
My scanner, by the way, is 8 years old. >.<

Have you tried GIMP?

Godoftarot · Post by **Godoftarot** » Thu Dec 30, 2004 6:03 pm

Higamigokoro wrote: For 18x24, though, I find its more practical to just take a snapshot with my digital camera (mounted on a tripod, of course) .

You know, that's actually a good idea. Too bad we don't own a digital camera. My grandma does, but hers sucks. Grandparents and technology don't mix for some reason. Although I suppose I could try it if I was feeling really adventurous.

Alaina · Post by **Alaina** » Thu Dec 30, 2004 6:22 pm

I second the digital camera idea (isn't technology groovy?) if you make sure you don't catch any shadows (sometimes the corners and edges of the pictures tend to darken, but a good lamp should take care of that). If you decide to scan piecewise and need a better editor I'd suggest GIMP, as it's free and all. Or you could pirate an art program off the net. Not that I nor anyone I know have ever done that before.

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Godoftarot · Post by **Godoftarot** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 8:33 am

Alaina wrote:I second the digital camera idea (isn't technology groovy?) if you make sure you don't catch any shadows (sometimes the corners and edges of the pictures tend to darken, but a good lamp should take care of that). If you decide to scan piecewise and need a better editor I'd suggest GIMP, as it's free and all. Or you could pirate an art program off the net. Not that I nor anyone I know have ever done that before.

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I don't understand how to download GIMP. It does that thing where it comes up with the Index of /gimp page. Is it supposed to do that? What do I do to download it?

Faub · Post by **Faub** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 9:57 am

You were looking at the source files for GIMP. Unless you have a compiler, those won't work for you. The page you want is here:

http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/stable.html

You will need to download and install the packages in this order:
1. GTK+ 2 for Windows (version 2.4.14)
2. The Gimp for Windows (version 2.2.0)

When you get everything installed and running, on the main window do:
File -> Preferences -> Environment
Check Conservative Memory Usage
and increase the size of your Tile Cache to about half the size of your RAM.
This will make GIMP run a bit better for large images.

If you don't know how much RAM you have, Right-click on My Computer, select properties. Your RAM size will be listed somewhere on the General tab.

BOMC · Post by **BOMC** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 11:35 am

godoftarot wrote: My scanner, by the way, is 8 years old. >.<

My scanner is about 7 and a half years old and it still works fine... so it is probably some other reason that yours doesn't work too well.

Godoftarot · Post by **Godoftarot** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 11:44 am

BOMC wrote:
godoftarot wrote: My scanner, by the way, is 8 years old. >.<
My scanner is about 7 and a half years old and it still works fine... so it is probably some other reason that yours doesn't work too well.

Knowing my family it was the cheapest one we could find >.<

Moonshadow · Post by **Moonshadow** » Sat Jan 01, 2005 9:33 am

You've got a lot of good answers... just one I'll add, if you can find a program called MGI Photosuite, it's good for "stitching" images together (making one image out of more than one). I'm not sure how it does for line art, but it does great on photos and color art.

(I have a copy but I don't use it, everything I do is on 8.5x11, currently, because of transportation issues. >.< Oughta just ebay the thing, it's still sealed.)

Chibiartstudios · Post by **Chibiartstudios** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 6:42 pm

Hmmm... Interesting. Does anybody know how big the professional comic book artst's paper is? I'd like to give doing that a shot but I want to make sure I have a scanner bog enough to do it.

And no. I HATE piecing together comics. It never comes together right.

Faub · Post by **Faub** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 7:30 pm

Professional artists draw on 11x17 paper but with bleeds and margins added, it's reduced to about 9x15.

Blambot's Rule your own page tutorial.

Ian Moulding · Post by **Ian Moulding** » Mon Jan 24, 2005 8:19 pm

I decided some of my art was ready for public consumption, so I went in to my local copyshop to get a couple of pages scanned. How much could it possibly be? $.25? $.50?

FIVE DOLLARS A PAGE?! ARE YOU INSANE?!

Scanners cost $175 at London Drugs. I think I know what my next big purchase is going to be. I mean, I like you guys and all, and I'd like to share some of my work 'cause I feel a bit of a twit commenting on other people's work when I don't have anything up, but...

$5 a page. Suddenly, a flat $175 doesn't seem so bad.

Caduceus · Post by **Caduceus** » Mon Jan 24, 2005 11:23 pm

They do that because they don't want you to get stuff scanned there. It isn't very cost effective because it ties up man-hours and equipment.

I am very happy with my Visioneer One-Touch 9120 USB. Inexpensive and damn fast to boot.

Ian Moulding · Post by **Ian Moulding** » Tue Jan 25, 2005 10:27 pm

I'm looking at a Canon CanoScan LiDe 80. Does anyone have any experience with Canon's scanners? I'm a bit worried, because the last Canon product I bought (A printer) broke down a month to the day after the warranty ran out. Is this typical?

I'd be interested in any other scanners you guys can recommend, but they need to be Mac compatible.