Scanning Images Of Stamps

Probably has been asked before but what are some of your scanner settings. Mine always seem to take forever to scan a image. My scans also always have white specs like dust but the glass is clean and the sheets I store them in also. Only other option which I hope it is not is dust on the underside of the glass.

So basically what are your setting or the best to use?

Is this any use?

https://goscf.com/t/10675#10675

How old is your scanner?
How old is your computer?
What operating system are you using?

The biggest mistake that collectors make is using the entire scanner glass (approx 8 x 10 inches) as their "scan" area, and then trying to crop away the excess space.

Use the bottom corner, and set your area to 2 x 2 inches for a single stamp, at 600dpi. Scan a maximum of 6 or 8 stamps at a time, in 2 rows of 3 or 4 stamps, typical scan area for 6 or 8 stamps would be 4 x 4 inches, or maybe a little larger.

Your 600dpi scan will be too big for SCF, so reduce its pixel count with "Microsoft Office Picture Manager," which is part of every Windows system, although many people don't know it's there (I didn't, for almost a year).

For practice, go to "My Pictures," select a large image, and right click on its name, then select "Open With..........Picture Manager," and reduce it down for SCF (under 100kb) and SAVE it with a new name. And forget about using cellphone cameras to make images, the results are invariably lousy (and sideways half the time).

To supplement Doug's sound advice, I make up a black stock page, using alternate strips, with all the stamps I want to scan. My Epson scanner is set up to drop the scans straight in to Photoshop. So first I do a preview of the whole sheet and when happy with colour and contrast I then crop and scan the individual stamps on the preview and do the full scans much as Doug has described. Just saves time taking stamps off the scanner bed and replacing them. I use the Prinz stock pages with various width strips to fully accommodate the stamps so there is no strip edge line showing on the scans.

Terry

Terry, I use vario stockpages. One problem I have is when I cut/crop a image it will rescan the page over. I guess I should do a whole page scan then a secondary program to cut and paste. Just trying to cut down scanning time.

Type of scanner is a all in one HP C4280
hooked up to a dinosaur tower computer running Window Vista.

Doug when scanning you say a 2x2 setting and place in the lower right. That confused me a little.

Hi 1775mac,

This is how I do it.

Epson scanner set up to iMac and linked to Photoshop. So I open Photoshop and import scanner.
Set scanner to photo/reflective scan.
Do the preview scan at target size, the whole stock sheet.
This preview scan will not be lost when you crop and do the proper scans at 600dpi. It will only be dumped when you do another preview, but it is polite it will ask you first.
Crop the first stamp image allowing a reasonable margin of black. Adjust colour balance and contrast. Scan at 600dpi.
If scan ok give it a file name and save to new named file as jpeg.
Rather than fudge around re-sizing for SCF, I open the image in their image optimiser, download the optimised image to my desktop and reload the optimised image using the SCF import image file option. This works fine. As a spin off I then have two image files of each scan, one for here one for me. Best way to get proficient with scanning and photoshop (or any image handling software) is to dive in and play with the tools. Make notes so you can repeat stuff.

Have fun
Terry

1775mac At the office i've worked with both HP and Canon scanners and it was frustrating..upgraded to an Epson and it worked great!
If your scanner should one day pack it in, consider replacing it with an Epson. I personally have found their software user friendly and easier to use.

There is a nice piece of software called stamp bursting - http://www.drakeserver.com/
It is java based so will run on any computer and it takes a sheet of stamps and 'bursts' them into individual images, one per stamp.
It is an option to try it as it is free and may save someone some time.

try this one...

https://goscf.com/t/30390


-IBFS

Thats what I do. I scan at at least 600dpi and prefer 1200dpi. If scanning many stamps, I then cut them up using gimp.