Portable scanners - Are they really THAT bad?

Despite the predictions of 40 years ago, we're not living in a paperless world yet, so you may need to scan in documents and photos. Are small portable scanners an adequate solution, or is a conventional flatbed scanner still your best choice? Let's find out...

Time flow:
0:00 Introduction
1:31 Overview
2:51 Handheld scanner
5:34 Scanning magazines
9:07 Sheet feeder scanner
11:30 Scanning photos
12:39 Landscape image
13:35 3-way comparison
14:47 Conclusion

#portable #photo #scanner

[gfdggdfgdgf]

Top tip: if you get moire on an even number of DPI try an odd number of DPI and vice versa. This usually gets rid of any moiré effect.

[timothyapplegate]

I have a very similar handheld scanner. It works very well. I got it from a thrift store. The included SD card had two scans on it, the first page of a cookbook, and a piece of notebook paper with all the previous owner's banking information written on it.

[HandFromCoffin]

I was in desktop support when all the sales people though these where the future. Then they used one.

[PosyMusic]

So you’re a VW guy huh… 😉 I always enjoy your videos, relaxing, entertaining and informative.

[Quesbe]

I had one of those for school, because I have a fine motor disability and I can't write really well. So I was supposed to scan the document to fill it in on the computer.
This issue is that, because of the very same motor disabilty, I was not able to use the thing. Very ironic, innit?
Also I think they do a terrible job compared to a flatbed scanner.
(edit: for clarification, I'm talking about the handheld one)

[ruikazane]

"There's more than one way to scan a cat" Didn't expect to hear that. And this time...nothing's beating a flatbed, even if it uses a parallel port. If I could get one!

[kumarp]

The Adobe Scan app is pretty great. I've used it to scan entire books. It will automatically find the edges of the page before capturing the image. You can then convert the images to PDF. The text on the images will be converted so you can find or copy and paste from the PDF.

[sebastiancabrol]

This video convinced me to continue to use my old flatbed scanner, which I don't find too bulky or uncomfortable to use.

[patrickcardon]

Reminds me of those handheld B&W/Gray scale scanners with an ISA interface board you used with an XT or AT ... it was marvelous back then but of limited use 😁

[Markimark]

I used the Brookstone portable scanner, it’s actually decent for paper documents and small photos, it’s only meant for quick scans at schools and offices. But I don’t recommend them for everyday scanning, get a rapid scanner from Epson or Canon, those are top notch scanners, the schools use them for students to upload their class assignments and homework!

[joelcarson]

Moire' pattern is because the CMYK print's particular line screen is somewhat close to the pixel resolution of the "Low" scan setting. There's also the fact that the dots in each of the four colors in the print are at (usually) fifteen degrees off from each other. This is done to prevent moire' and other unwelcome artifacts. You can see the little "rosettes" with a decent magnifier. Source: Too many years in the print industry.

[atkelar]

I know at least of one visual artist who carries (or used to carry) one of these in his drawing bag so he can get quick and decent scans of his sketches without carrying a complete laptop around. I found that might be the perfect use case for these.

[koghs]

If you want to make phone camera "scans" more worthwhile you should use one of the many apps on the market that will correct the perspective and remove glare and such for you

[finkelmana]

I have the exact same scanner in my closet. I haven used in years. However, the sound it makes while scanning is unmistakable.

[ArturdeSousaRocha]

I have seen a couple handheld models in use over the years. The earlier one was rubbish but the other was actually really solid, with good image and no sliding frustration.

[mycosys]

The best option is probably still what it was in the 70s - put your SLR on a tripod facing down and use 3 studio lights. Lot more accessible now lol

[siberx]

All of the "wand" type scanners I've ever seen or used have simply been an exercise in frustration. Invariably you fight with the page so much and end up having to use hacky solutions like taping the page down that you would have saved yourself more grief to use a proper document scanner that you feed documents into. If you need to scan books/magazines these days, the upright camera-based book scanners are they way to go as they'll handle curvature properly in the better models and are way faster, and are only a little bit bulkier when folded up.

For regular document scanning, I bought an Epson document scanner (an ES-200 in my case) a couple years ago that folds up to only slightly larger than your second unit, but when opened up has a full proper document tray at the top that's able to accept at least a dozen pages to scan in one go with no intervention. It produces clean, accurate results and is a huge timesaver when scanning multi-page materials; for anybody trying to digitize their documents without buying a full-blown office style document scanner or all-in-one, these are a great option. It's not a "standalone" device (it must be hooked up to a computer) but it can be USB-powered, and honestly these days it's not hard to bring a small laptop or something with you if you actually need to scan in the field somewhere.

[chaindead]

You could use that handheld scanner at the newsstand. Free News, whoa!

[I]

Lada Canada at 12:40 was the most surprising thing

[BigCar]

Could you run the AC power scanner on 4 AA batteries connected to the barrel jack connector?