Mustek larger Scanner 1200

[JohnTF]

I have been looking for more than a year on a reasonable price on an A3 or larger flat bed. I have used the Epson 1640XL at my friend's shop, but have been sniped out of the running when they come up on the bay.

The Mustek seems to have reasonable specs, 48 bit, 1200 dpi, 9600 interpolated, and works well with Photoshop.

I am getting some fine lines in denser parts of the image, less than ten pixels along the direction of the scan. They are finer than scratches picked up from the surface of a print.

Is it unreasonable to expect to get finer results with this scanner?

I am scanning at 48 bit 600 dpi, which is what I used on the Epson, and taking a walk during the process. I try to keep other stuff from running, but yes, I do need a faster computer with more memory.

And, no, I am certainly not a scan expert.

Thanks very much in advance.

If the machine is defective, I want to know and to exchange it, if it is performing at expectations, I either have to live with it and hope the defects will not show in prints, or rethink buying the 10000 XL and a new desktop.

I have perhaps 50 prints I wish to scan. I did leave a dozen prints for a year to be scanned, and they had technical problems long standing with their computer hardware and scanner.

The biggest store in Cleveland does not have a scanner capable of 11x14 scans.

John

 

[amateriat]

John: What wort of computer setup do you have (Operating system/processor/RAM/etc.)? Sometimes, a serious lack of computing power can compromise scanning quality if the process is interrupted repeatedly (I've had this happen in the past with a few otherwise-fine flatbed and film scanners). This does not necessarily mean that there's no problem at all with that Mustek, but you want to be certain of things before tossing it out.

(BTW: Are the images you've recently uploaded to the Gallery scanned from the Mustek?)


- Barrett

 

[JohnTF]

John: What wort of computer setup do you have (Operating system/processor/RAM/etc.)? Sometimes, a serious lack of computing power can compromise scanning quality if the process is interrupted repeatedly (I've had this happen in the past with a few otherwise-fine flatbed and film scanners). This does not necessarily mean that there's no problem at all with that Mustek, but you want to be certain of things before tossing it out.

(BTW: Are the images you've recently uploaded to the Gallery scanned from the Mustek?)


- Barrett

Thanks for the data, I have looked around this part of the forum for similar problems, and have heard such things, I am looking for a gray scale to scan, and I have a laptop with more memory than my desktop.


Am using XP, the desktop is a Dell 8200, bit long in the tooth, good thing I had the memory upgraded to 500 mb when I bought it. I have been working on a faster and more powerful machine as the memory chips are rare for this beast and cost much more used than a new machine.

And yes, the scans I posted yesterday are from this scanner.

I want to be able to send out good files to be printed to the same quality, (or lack of quality ;-)) as the original.

When I reduce the size, and change to 8 bit jpegs I can still enlarge the image and see the linear artifacts though I did scan white sheet to see if anything showed there, with nothing jumping out at me.

I think I will check some other large file scans, there are a lot of variables.

I thought the higer resolution scans on even some low cost HP scanners to be quite acceptable, my problem was in the format of the originals. I got a deal on a new Epson VL 750, but again, the size is not there. I mainly intended the Epson for some projects with LF and my Fuji 6x17.

Thanks again, if you email me, I can send you a section of the files, I have no on line sites other than this one that I post to, and I am afraid I bore people enough now in the Gallery so I surely do not want to put up some test scans to move them here. ;-)

Appreciate your time.

John

 

[venchka]

A bit more information please. We need your whole workflow setup.

Size of originals to be scanned.

Output media and size from scan files.

I am scanning 6x7 negatives, 16 bit and 48 bit, at 2,400 spi and the larger 48 bit TIFF files are running just under 200mb. I do minor editing in Lightroom and print on letter size paper. My 16 bit 4x5 scans at 2,100 spi TIFF files are around 70-75mb.

XP Home on an ancient dual Xeon box with 4Gb ram and Epson Scan.

Have you gone to the Epson site and downloaded ALL of the current software drivers and Epson Scan for your scanner?

Keep us posted on progess. Good Luck.

 

[JohnTF]

A bit more information please. We need your whole workflow setup.

Size of originals to be scanned.

Mostly 11x14 prints, some a bit smaller.

Output media and size from scan files.

Am archiving them right now on a dedicated HD, files are running 300 MB in PSD format. I convert them to 8 bit and save a copy as a jpeg for convenience. Original scan is at 600 dpi and 48 bit.

I am scanning 6x7 negatives, 16 bit and 48 bit, at 2,400 spi and the larger 48 bit TIFF files are running just under 200mb. I do minor editing in Lightroom and print on letter size paper. My 16 bit 4x5 scans at 2,100 spi TIFF files are around 70-75mb.

XP Home on an ancient dual Xeon box with 4Gb ram and Epson Scan.

Have you gone to the Epson site and downloaded ALL of the current software drivers and Epson Scan for your scanner?

Keep us posted on progess. Good Luck.

Thanks for the time and good wishes, am afraid I muddied up the last post, my Epson is too small for these prints, so I bought the Mustex A3 1200 Pro to try and get my analog digital, make some minor adjustments in Photoshop and hopefully farm out the printing to a place where I can enjoy some drinks with umbrellas while they do the heavy lifting. ;-)

On an earlier excursion to Scannerland, I had spent a day at Campus Camera getting an Epson 1640 XL to work with a computer about the same vintage as mine. Because of the quality of the computer, it looks as if it is taking a snooze, but if you close everything else down it gets the job done eventually.

I figured out why they had been sitting on my work, and got theirs to work. Computer absolutely could not run the scanning software and PS at the same time.

I bought the Mustek when I got tired of playing around trying to find an XL Epson at any kind of reasonable price. It seems enough people have the same desire that the crap shoot is not working for me in the purchase department.

Thanks for the input, if I have muddied it all up again, just let me know and I will try to get the scrub brush out.

There are three possibilities when I use the input from PS CS, but only one that lets me choose 48 bit color, so I have been using that. Takes close to 20 minutes for a scan.

John