Best Scanner For Bulk Scanning????

Can anyone suggest a a really fast good quality scanner for scanning multiples of covers and stamps.
TIA

Whichever one is on sale when a scanner poops out. I am on my third. The software is as important as the scanner itself. My first scanner was very cheap. It was one of those free after rebate deals. It's software was very user friendly, fast and easy. Unfortunately it will not work with the other scanners I have purchased. I use one of those HP all in one deals now. I don't like the HP operating software. It takes too long. When I am scanning for ebay I often have 100's of images to scan. However I need the fax and copier and laser printer and those work very well with the HP

Mine only scans up to 600 dpi. I wish I had made sure it would do 1200 dpi when I was looking for a printer/scanner. Images I have seen done at 1200 dpi you can zoom in much better before you it turns into a lot of small blocks.

Hi Bas S Warwick,

I have been using an Epson Perfection V700 photo scanner to scan photos, artwork and stamps for about four years. I have had several different types before and this is definitely the best I have ever used. It has a scanning bed of slightly bigger than A4, and will scan film, slides and opaque material such as photos, artwork and stamps at up to 6400 dpi and has a Dmax of 4.0. The quality is outstanding. The scanner comes with Epson software which is very good and Silverlight which was so problematic I binned it. I now use VueScan 9 software which is excellent and costs $40 for the standard version and $80 for the pro version. For most users the standard version is fine. In the UK the price of the V700 varies from £441 upwards, so it pays to shop around. There is a more expensive pro model, the 750, but after chatting with an Epson engineer I felt that the additional functions were minimal and did not materially improve on the output from the 700.

Terry

I use 2 scanners. The one is an all in one (A.I.O) H.P.Desk-jet 3050 which can scan up to 1200dpi and a bit faster than the other, and an H.P.Desk-jet F335 (A.I.O). This scans up to 3600dpi but can take a long time to do it, so hardly ever use that one. I use Picasa 3 software on each and then upload images to my host site AKA: Photobucket.

Or if people are looking for a more cost-effective option that has 90%+ of the quality of the V700, the next model down, the V500 is available new for US$150. I have two of them and swear by them. All my stamp images are done with the Epson V500.

I use the Epson V500 also and it works very well for scanning covers. I believe I got it even less than $150 when it was on sale through Amazon.com.

I second the Epson recommendation. I have a V350 Photo that I've used for years, and most of the images on my website were scanned with it. Even though I've stopped using it as my primary scanner (I bought a large-format model - Epson 10000XL), I still keep it plugged in for smaller jobs.

Another vote for Epson. They are made by Seiko so have a good quality about them.
I like the software (TWAIN) and they are relatively fast for USB devices.
When looking at resolution ensure you only use optical resolution as some manufacturers use interpolated resolution which is a bit like digital zoom on a digital camera, useless.

If you have a lot of images to scan this software can help a lot.
You basically scan a whole page of stamps and it splits them into singles (image bursting).
This will work with any scanner though as it processes the images post scanning.

http://www.drakeserver.com/

This past year I had to replace my scanner, this one being #3 since 1999.

My first was an HP. Then I went with Epson, and found that it took a lot longer and made lesser quality scans.

Now I have a Canon 9000F. FAR faster (new lighting element tech, I think) and scans are pretty darn good. The user interface seems faster, too. No more having to scan twice, unless you use the preview feature. But even then, it doesn't matter because it is so FAST!

I regularly put multiple postcards on the glass, preview, select the stamps, and scan... with the Epson, I'd be sitting there pulling my hair out. With the Canon, FAST!

Great info everyone. Many thanks - I appreciate the time you have taken to answer

I particularly like the idea of the "Stamp Image Bursting Application" that AnthonyUK mentioned. Sounds like it could save an amazing amount of time. Presuming it could work on multiple covers as well?

EPSOM. I was very pleased with the Epson Photo 700 printer I had and the quality of that was excellent, so an Epson scanner might be a good quality choice for me to look at.

Apart from being slow another problem I get with my current Brother MF is that the image finishes up huge 'as scanned', meaning I have to re-size to about 35%, then crop and rename. This all takes a long time. The scanner DPI setting is currently on 1200 x 1200 - does this have any effect on scanned size? DPI choices are in six steps from 600x600 to 19200x19200

Hi Bas S Warwick,

Image bursting can be done manually in Photoshop by cropping out the individual stamp images from the overall scan. However with this method, or using the image bursting software, you will not get high resolution scans you for the individually cropped out stamp images. The correct way to do this is to lay a clear film stock sheet full of stamps on the scanner bed and do a preview scan of the whole sheet. Then crop out one stamp at a time and do a high resolution scan of it. Save the scan and repeat the process for the next stamp. It will take longer but there is no other way to get the high quality you say you need. By the way, the Epson V500 is a very good scanner, and I would have bought it had I not needed the higher resolution scans possible with the V700. You have to decide what level of image quality you want and buy accordingly. I have tested the Epson V700 against much higher priced pro scanners such as the Hasselblad Flextight and found little difference in quality. Certainly not enough to justify the megabuck price of the Hasselblad.

Terry

PS. Scan time will increase with increase in resolution chosen. I have not encountered the sizing problem you mention with any Epson scanner. Pre-set all the scan parameters correctly and you will get perfect, sharp and detailed scans.

TC.

With thr Epson software you can select the area you want to scan so no real need to crop afterwards. The image bursting also negates the need to do that.
The DPI is what determines your image size. If you scan a 1"x1" image at 1200dpi the resulting image will be 1200x1200 pixels in size.
At 600 dpi, 600x600 etc.