Newbie Scanner - simple setup, and it works!
Posted: 20 Aug 2013, 16:11
I found out about Daniel's instructable, and one week later I've got my first book digitized! My intent was to copy a library textbook (long out of print) for my archive, but I dreaded copying 1036 pages on a flatbed scanner. Plus, flatbed scanning of a large textbook gives questionable to crappy results and the thought of putting all that work into scanning a crummy copy of a book was overwhelming.
In desperation, I turned to Ixquick to see if anybody had a better idea. Daniel's instructable was on the first result-page, I took a look and I was HOOKED!
Wandering into this forum, I saw that the process had improved vastly from the cardboard-box cutup - truly, I am impressed with the efforts and results!
But I had the book on loan already, time was ticking, and I wanted to get this book done quickly. No time to assemble a 2-camera setup.
Fortunately, I had an old Epson USB scanner/printer that I had been trying to get rid of for weeks. The thrift store had a room-full of donated scanner/printers and respectfully wouldn't take another. The recycle-dude here told me it cost him $40 to get rid of a printer- so he didn't want it. I'm a half-day drive from the nearest Best Buy (thankfully they will take eWaste "contributions" for free, FYI), so there sat the scanner taking up space and waiting for its last car ride...
Long story short, I salvaged the glass from the scanner and also the sheet-feed support and the top cover. This photo shows the lashup duct-taped to my worktable and propped up with a box full of 3/8" sockets.
This photo shows the full setup.
I'm using an Oly E-PL1 on a tripod with a single halogen flood directly over the book (the small reflector). A representative sample of pages from raw JPG to Scan Tailor output to final PDF page shows that even this simple setup works fine.
Raw JPG from Camera
Scan Tailor TIF output
Final PDF output
It takes me 4-5 seconds per page during the shoot-stage, once I get into "the dance", and just to keep things clean I stop to manually re-focus the Oly every 20-30 pages. With this setup, the pages slowly move away from the camera so I like to keep things "pin-sharp" as the Brits say. Not good for high-volume, but probably faster than I'd do with a flatbed scanner.
Starting on Friday with nothing but an inspiration (Thanks Daniel!), I worked through the weekend and finished the book on the following Monday. 1036 pages from paper to PDF including adding the TOC to the PDF as bookmarks (especially helpful in textbooks, where you're constantly flipping between chapters and sections).
Zero to 60 in no time at all!
Thanks to all of the wonderful people who have created the software tools to do this magic. And thanks to Daniel for the inspiration to " Just Do It "!
Sam
In desperation, I turned to Ixquick to see if anybody had a better idea. Daniel's instructable was on the first result-page, I took a look and I was HOOKED!
Wandering into this forum, I saw that the process had improved vastly from the cardboard-box cutup - truly, I am impressed with the efforts and results!
But I had the book on loan already, time was ticking, and I wanted to get this book done quickly. No time to assemble a 2-camera setup.
Fortunately, I had an old Epson USB scanner/printer that I had been trying to get rid of for weeks. The thrift store had a room-full of donated scanner/printers and respectfully wouldn't take another. The recycle-dude here told me it cost him $40 to get rid of a printer- so he didn't want it. I'm a half-day drive from the nearest Best Buy (thankfully they will take eWaste "contributions" for free, FYI), so there sat the scanner taking up space and waiting for its last car ride...
Long story short, I salvaged the glass from the scanner and also the sheet-feed support and the top cover. This photo shows the lashup duct-taped to my worktable and propped up with a box full of 3/8" sockets.
This photo shows the full setup.
I'm using an Oly E-PL1 on a tripod with a single halogen flood directly over the book (the small reflector). A representative sample of pages from raw JPG to Scan Tailor output to final PDF page shows that even this simple setup works fine.
Raw JPG from Camera
Scan Tailor TIF output
Final PDF output
It takes me 4-5 seconds per page during the shoot-stage, once I get into "the dance", and just to keep things clean I stop to manually re-focus the Oly every 20-30 pages. With this setup, the pages slowly move away from the camera so I like to keep things "pin-sharp" as the Brits say. Not good for high-volume, but probably faster than I'd do with a flatbed scanner.
Starting on Friday with nothing but an inspiration (Thanks Daniel!), I worked through the weekend and finished the book on the following Monday. 1036 pages from paper to PDF including adding the TOC to the PDF as bookmarks (especially helpful in textbooks, where you're constantly flipping between chapters and sections).
Zero to 60 in no time at all!
Thanks to all of the wonderful people who have created the software tools to do this magic. And thanks to Daniel for the inspiration to " Just Do It "!
Sam