Flatbed Scanner Recommendation? Help please!

[NavyFCO]

I've gone through four scanners in the last 15 years and frankly, the earliest ones were the best. I had two of them back-to-back that were able to focus out to 3/4"...pretty amazing for a flat bed scanner. However, they were either broken or lost during moves (flatbed scanner glass and military movers don't mix...) and I am now out of scanners - and I need one. I was looking online yesterday and found the Canon LiDE models, and discovered we had an unused one (a 210) at work, so I borrowed it for a test drive. Playing with it this morning...I'm glad I didn't buy one!!! You can see from the scan of the document below that unless the item is 100% on the scanner face, it's blurred out...it might have 1/16" focal range.

I'm sure there are good scanners out there for medals, patches, wings and the like, but I don't have the means or time to buy a bunch of them and try them out. What have you found to work well?

Thank you in advance for advice!

Dave

[Chris Boonzaier]

Well known... Epson Perfection... all the way.... you can also do 3d badge scans....

[NavyFCO]

Chris - that's gorgeous! Which one of the perfections do you have?

Thanks!

Dave

[Chris Boonzaier]

Chris - that's gorgeous! Which one of the perfections do you have?

Thanks!

Dave

My perfections are many, I blush to say it aloud.

My whole life long women have followed me... just the rumour of how perfect I am drove them wild.

I must admit, I am getting older... but am still perfect... at least... thats what all the chicks say....

[Chris Boonzaier]

Sorry, i just saw this was the scanner topic... I have an old 640U which creaks and groans when it scans, but I think all epson work that well.

Best

Chris

[NavyFCO]

My perfections are many, I blush to say it aloud.

My whole life long women have followed me... just the rumour of how perfect I am drove them wild.

I must admit, I am getting older... but am still perfect... at least... thats what all the chicks say....

LOL! Nice!

The 640U sounds like one of my old ones...I just found one on amazon for $60, so I'm going to jump on it.

Here's a vivid example of the failure of my canon LiDE 210. The smaller image in the lower corner was done with an early Epson, whereas the HORRIBLE image was done this morning on the Canon...

[Chris Boonzaier]

When my first Epson broke I went into town and bought a canon.... finally got it to work, and saw it could not scan badgess, took it back, got another name brand... ditto... took it back and saw an Epson on sale ... and grabbed it!

I use it and Irfanview to scan then crop right away.... peeeeeeerfect!

[Ferdinand]

I'm have been using my Epson Stylus CX6400 all-in-one printer-scanner for some some eight years now and I'm still very satisfied with it. It was cheap then and I'm sure they are dirt cheap now. In my experience its 600-DPI scans are sharpest. Here are two sample scans. Even the reverse of the order is fairly visible, despite the 2-cm screwpost.

Edited January 10, 2013 by Ferdinand

[Laurence Strong]

I run the Epson 2400, and have had it for 8 years or so with no issues what so ever. Very happy with it. The "Daisy" of off a PAB

Larry

Edited January 10, 2013 by Laurence Strong