Re: [OT] Scanning for archiving

[TP <wingusr@gmail.com>]

On Sun, Nov 6, 2011 at 1:59 PM, Pieter Praet <pieter@praet.org> wrote:
> On Sat, 5 Nov 2011 16:35:11 -0700, Samuel Wales <samologist@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I used to find that 8-bit 75dpi was legible and small.
>>
>
> True.
>
> It all depends on why you're scanning them in the first place.
>
> 75dpi is fine when scanning with collaboration/quick-reference in mind,
> but for archival/backup purposes (i.e. absolute peace of mind when your
> whole collection of dead trees burns, drowns, or is simply disposed of)
> or OCR, you'll want to go with 600dpi and beyond.

One common technique is to always scan 300dpi grayscale (or color) and
use clever software to upsample to 600dpi b&w (of course somehow
segmenting scans into "picture" and "text" regions first.

>> What ADF scanners are out there for Linux that have high quality
>> reliable ADF, [...]
>
> I wish I knew...  If anyone on this list can think of a scanner whose
> ADF doesn't require constant babysitting, I'm betting it won't have a
> consumer-grade price tag.

I've heard nice things about the Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500
(http://www.fujitsu.com/global/services/computing/peripheral/scanners/product/s1500/)
and S1500M (http://www.fujitsu.com/global/services/computing/peripheral/scanners/product/s1500m/).
About $450 or so from amazon. The S1300 is about half the price but
also slower.

Apparently the S1500's are supported on Linux via Sane
(http://www.sane-project.org/sane-backends.html#S-FUJITSU). Don't see
any mention of the S1300 (but it probably also works?).