[Coco] [Color Computer] some help to scan books

[wdg3rd at comcast.net]

A slow scanner (or even a fast scanner, but maybe you're scanning slides at the highest resolution and color range available, such as when I was archiving my collection of slides of Morris Scott Dollens' artwork) leaves you time to read email or a dead-tree book while you wait for the "done" window to pop up.  (Or surf the web for porn, hell, I'm just a kid barely into my second half century).  I gotta add that art to my web page (though not in full multi-megabyte resolution per slide, Comcast would soil themselves), Morris was one of the best artists of alien landscapes and skyscapes ever, and a good friend who never owned a computer.  Not this weekend, that's the New York Comic-Con (I'll be helping a friend sell stuff so I don't have to pay to get in to have a couple of books signed [the books are also on-line at www.bigheadpress.com, but it's more comfortable during a power failure if a tree died]).  Weekend after.  My page has been too long between updates anyway, too many dead links, like that blog I almost started.  (Gotta put in pictures of my Color Computers, and my other stuff from Tandy and/or built on Motorola CPUs).  And of course some of the political stuff needs updating.  Political stuff always needs updating.  Even though a change of regime between the left and right halves of the Boot-on-Your-Neck Party isn't a major reason.

Oh, crap.  Kids, don't drink and post.  Especially if you've had over a third of a century to build tolerance to ethanol and so not notice when you're descending into utter reason^w^w absolute nonsense.
-- 
Ward Griffiths        wdg3rd at comcast.net

----- "stinger30au" <stinger30au at yahoo.com.au> wrote:

> From: "stinger30au" <stinger30au at yahoo.com.au>
> To: ColorComputer at yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Tuesday, February 3, 2009 4:00:32 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
> Subject: [Coco] [Color Computer] some help to scan books
>
> this may interest a few of you and may give you the incentive to
> start
> scanning some of your own collection of books / magazines for
> preservation of the coco
> 
> 
> i am running Linux Mint, based on Ubuntu
> http://www.linuxmint.com/
> 
> it has a program that is easily installed calld
> 
> gscan2pdf
> 
> http://gscan2pdf.sourceforge.net/
> 
> 
> this software was written for projects like this and its all open
> source and all free
> 
> when you get the dvd with coco-link magazines on it  that was a
> learning experience for me
> 
> i did 1989 first and the files were about 200 meg in size each.
> thats cos i did them in grey scale.
> silly me. 
> gscan2pdf (i didnt know at the time as i admit i didnt read the
> instructions, i just hooked in) will let me change scan options per
> page.
> so i eventually figured out i could do the front and rear pages of
> the
> book in colour like the original and then scan the rest as "lineart"
> 
> lineart simpley scans in pure black and white. and takes up bugger
> all
> room to save
> 
> some settings i used that may interest you
> when i scanned the colour pages i did them at 300 dpi
> when i did the remaining in lineart i did them at 400 dpi
> when i did this i got the file sizes frm 200 meg all the way down to
> about 70 meg per book
> 
> if you want to scan the books non-destructively then you will need a
> single sheet scanner and its going to take some time.
> wen i did the coco-link mags they were about 50 pages long. it would
> take about an hour per book.
> it would be quikcer if you had a fast scanner though.
> my current scanner is a canon lide20 usb snail pace scanner, but it
> did the trick. very very slowly, but it worked.
> 
> the problem you will run in to with single sheet scanners is with
> large magazines/books etc that wil not sit correctly on the glass
> 
> if you open up a large book and put both covers flat on the table
> there is a huge bow in the middle from where the pages come up from
> the spine.
> 
> that big bow in the middle when it gets scanned will create a black
> area on the scans on the edge and it will look horrible.
> 
> 
> theres a few ways around this.
> 
> fist is to get a scanner with an ADF - autmatic document feeder
> 
> this lets you put say 20 pages in and it feeds them thru
> automatically
> just like a fax machine
> 
> for this to happenen you need to cut the spin off the book with a
> guilotine first.
> 
> im happy to do this with my collection to save them for ever in pdf.
> unfortuanelty theres many around who dont want to do this, but fail
> to
> remember that paper wont last forever and they need to be pdf
> converted
> 
> 
> there is however an alternative i have stumbled across in my travels
> in the past few days
> 
> i have found a program for windows called snapster
> 
> http://www.snapter.atiz.com/
> 
> 
> you can buy the s/w or get it for free if you send an email to 20
> friends and they read the emails fron snapster
> 
> 
> what this software does is pretty ingenious. you can take a photo of
> a
> book open and it will  make a proper pdf from both pages
> 
> i tried this with a elcheapo samgsung 7 megapixel camera
> 
> 
> it wasnt to bad, but i think the camera is what let it down. you need
> good lighting and a great camera.
> 
> after i found this i went hunting to find ideas to build a proper
> setup to scan books via camera and found this
> 
> 
> http://www.instructables.com/id/Quickly-Scan-a-Textbook-With-a-Camera/
> 
> 
> infact this setup also tells you to use the snapster software!
> 
> 
> so there is an alternative if you willing to play round a bit
> 
> hope this gives you all some encouragement to scan away