Scanner Question - Auto Related

So I'm posting this here because it doesn't directly fit the board topics. But it does have to do with our style of rides in a round about way.

I have a ton of old automotive themed photos, and a ton (probably literally) of old (1940's through mid 1970's) car magazines. I want to scan them and then get rid of the hard copies.

So I'm looking for nice quality scanner that will scan slides, photographs, and large images. Some of those car ads are tri fold size so I doubt Ill be able to scan something that large, Ill have to stitch them together in Photoshop. But I would like to be able to scan up to 11x17. Possibly something with an auto feeder would be nice too.

Thanks for any insights

Mark

 

I suspect that anything that could scan 11x17 might end up being a bit "spendy", though you might find something used. And you still might not be able to scan slides with it either. But there's an alternative you might consider.

What do you have in the way of a digital camera and a tripod? You wouldn't need a terribly fancy camera either. But something with some manual control would be helpful. Mount the camera on the tripod pointing downward with the magazine laying flat beneath it. Maybe add a couple of cheap clamp-on trouble lamps with reflectors to give you plenty of even lighting. Use the camera's self-timer or a remote shutter release to keep from jiggling things around.

Here's one DIY approach to check out.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Portable-Paperless-Digital-Copy-Machine/?ALLSTEPS

 

That's a pretty cool set up. But I think it would take a super long time to scan all the stuff I want to scan. I don't mind spending a few bucks on a machine though. I figure it would be money well spent.

I had a decent HP scanner but it wouldn't work with my newer computers =(

 

I looked online a bit at some larger format scanners and most of them designed for this kind of scanning are a couple grand or more. There were a few 11 x 17 models out there that were in the couple hundred dollar range but I would be a little suspicious of how well suited they were for any kind of larger scale project.

As far as the time involved, scanning an 11 x17 document is maybe going to be a little more time consuming than you might think. Especially if you're planning on scanning at somewhere around 200 to 300 DPI so that pages can be printed clearly. If you want to just view them on a monitor you can probably get away with scanning at 100 to 150 DPI which would be a little faster.

I guess that I've just got it in my head that things will go faster using a camera stand setup instead of a flatbed scanner, especially if you're scanning more than a handful of magazines.

 

Well it does sound like you are much more well versed in this subject than me =)

Ill have to study up a little on the specifics of how higher scanning quality actually works.

I'm a copier guy and most copiers today are also scanners. I think the most they will do for color images is 600 DPI, but they actually scan pretty quickly (way faster than my old HP flatbed) so there must be more of a difference than just DPI in copier vs. flat bed scanning.

Pretty much the only thing my customers scan are documents. I remember I scanned a magazine ad once and printed it out. Looked like crap.