Flat bed scanner

[SolarYellow]

I'm thinking about getting a high-resolution flat bed scanner for OE decal sheets, fin sets, instructions, and anything else I can think to do with it. The price is way, way down from not that long ago for pretty high resolution. Currently looking at this one:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07G5YBS1W/
Might save a few bucks and get the 2400 DPI scanner, but for about $23 more, it seems kinda silly to not go for 4800 DPI, just in case that's valuable for some currently unimagined use down the road.

Does anyone have experience with the currently available range of consumer-grade scanners like this? Any advice?

 

[mh9162013]

I have one of those 3-in-1 HP machines and it has a flatbed scanner that I use for archiving decals and fin patterns. It goes up to 1,200 DPI and that's way overkill for what I need; I normally scan at 600 DPI (JPEG or PDF...I know, I know, lossless, but my machine's basic software doesn't have the PNG, TIFF or w/e lossless format is recommended).

I've also noticed that at higher resolutions, you need a clean...I mean REALLY clean scanning area. Honestly, I wonder if the only way I can take advantage of anything over 600 DPI is to do the scanning in a clean room.

 

[BEC]

Regardless of the scanner, this is worth a look: https://www.hamrick.com/

VueScan has kept an older but perfectly functional Canon scanner, an ancestor to the one @SolarYellow linked to, working long after Canon stopped supporting it on Windows. I also use it with a Canon all-in-one here on my Mac.

It has TIFF as an option, for what that's worth. I generally scan straight to .pdf.

 

[DigBaddy]

Printing typically operates well at 300dpi. 2400dpi scanning, if decent, would allow for 8x upscales with better sharpness over lower scan resolution. Going to 4800 would be a waste of $, IMHO.

Odds are the thing you're scanning was printed at 300dpi, so huge scan values aren't much gain. Software may upscale better than a higher res scan.

If I get bored I can run some tests with my scanner....

 

[Blast it Tom!]

Regardless of the scanner, this is worth a look: https://www.hamrick.com/

VueScan has kept an older but perfectly functional Canon scanner, an ancestor to the one @SolarYellow linked to, working long after Canon stopped supporting it on Windows. I also use it with a Canon all-in-one here on my Mac.

It has TIFF as an option, for what that's worth. I generally scan straight to .pdf.

Wish I'd have known about this when Windoze 10 "obsoleted" my perfectly good Epson all in one that could scan slides and film negatives at 2400 dpi. I used to be able to restore/enlarge old family pictures...

 

[SolarYellow]

Printing typically operates well at 300dpi. 2400dpi scanning, if decent, would allow for 8x upscales with better sharpness over lower scan resolution. Going to 4800 would be a waste of $, IMHO.

Odds are the thing you're scanning was printed at 300dpi, so huge scan values aren't much gain. Software may upscale better than a higher res scan.

If I get bored I can run some tests with my scanner....

For several-x upscales, I'll probably just redraw stuff in AutoCAD so it prints out crispy at any size.

However, I'll just note that Nyquist suggests you need at least 600 dpi resolution to accurately capture something printed at 300 dpi. So @K'Tesh's rule of scanning at 600 dpi is probably good. Thinking it through, scanning at 2400 would let you positively capture 0.001-in resolution so you could pull stuff into AutoCAD and get dimensions at that tolerance off the image. (Assuming the image is geometrically accurate to that level.)

 

[Grog6]

The best silkscreen you see is only 200dpi; scanning at 2400 gives you room to use smoothing effects, denoise, and such without looking blocky. printing off a 600dpi laser or inkjet will look as good as original.
Scan a good magazine print at 2400 and look at it; that's a offset print at ~600dpi. youll see the "diffusion pattern."