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Subject: Tech, Question - Scanners From: Mooh Date: 12 Apr 00 - 10:50 AM Hi all, thanks in advance for your advice... I have not responded to lyric requests because of my slow and questionable keyboarding skills. However, if I had a scanner, could I scan my looseleaf style lyric sheets (which most often also contain the key and chord changes and are typed) and send them either to the forum or to the individual requesting them? I am considering the purchase of a scanner anyway to help me with lesson preparations. Please forgive my lack of computer literacy, I AM trying...well...when I'm not playing... |
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Subject: RE: Tech, Question - Scanners From: jeffp Date: 12 Apr 00 - 11:02 AM Since your lyric sheets are typed, it should be possible to scan them into an optical character recognition (OCR) program that would produce a word processing document that would more or less be what was typed. These programs are by no means perfect, but they have gotten much better in recent years. You will undoubtedly have some editing to do, but it should eliminate most of the retyping. Alternatively, you could save it as a TIFF file, but graphics files are quite large. If you OCR'd it, you could copy and paste the lyrics into a thread or email. Another benefit is that you would have a backup of your lyric sheets on your computer in case you lose the original. Hope this helps. jeffp |
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Subject: RE: Tech, Question - Scanners From: alison Date: 12 Apr 00 - 11:04 AM so where do you get this OCR stuff from????..... I had this probelm earlier today.. I could scan in.. but only got the choice of jpg, gif, bmp, or tiff...... I needed to save as a document so I could fiddle with it.... slainte alison |
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Subject: RE: Tech, Question - Scanners From: Malcolm Douglas Date: 12 Apr 00 - 11:12 AM Some scanners come with OCR software "bundled", but it may not install automatically, so check the disks that came with your scanner just in case you already have some. Otherwise, you can get the stuff from most software suppliers; best check what will work with your scanner, though -the manufacturers ought to be able to tell you. Malcolm |
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Subject: RE: Tech, Question - Scanners From: alison Date: 12 Apr 00 - 11:16 AM Thanks slainte alison |
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Subject: Here's how I just did it. From: Philj200 Date: 12 Apr 00 - 11:21 AM On a thread now sunk below the horizon, someone asked for a chart of banjo chords. I had one. I scanned it into a grahpic file (a TIFF). Then all I had to do was send an e-mail with the file as an attachment. It worked fine. Scanners are now down to the $30 range (no kidding check CompUSA today for a Promax 5300). (After a $40 rebate.) OCR software usually comes with the scanner. (As do instructions) If you want to buy OCR software look for something called Textbridge. It's pretty good. There is also a music OCR package out of England that is supposed to read notation on a scan and not only reproduce it but play it through a midi and/or sound card. Once you have it saved you can alter the music to your hearts content and have your computer play it back as well. Can sonmeone say Copyright infringement? I downloaded the demo version and am not impressed so I won't pass along the name. But it's out there. |
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Subject: RE: Tech, Question - Scanners From: katlaughing Date: 12 Apr 00 - 11:23 AM My scanner, an HP5100C, allows me to scan in sheet music, as a text file to my WP program. There is editing involved, but it sure beats typing all that in! To send a complete page, with music included, I just choose to send it to my Corel or Adobe photo program, so that I literally "take a picture" of it with the scanner. Then I can choose jpg format or whatever to send it to someone by email quite easily. kat |
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Subject: RE: Tech, Question - Scanners From: kendall Date: 12 Apr 00 - 12:51 PM All I want to do is send pictures. What do I need? No jargon please, just the facts man/mam. |
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Subject: RE: Tech, Question - Scanners From: Mooh Date: 12 Apr 00 - 12:59 PM Hey Folks! You've sent me in the right direction I think. Any more suggestions? Thanks again. Peace, Mooh. |
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Subject: RE: Tech, Question - Scanners From: MMario Date: 12 Apr 00 - 01:05 PM kendall, for pictures, you need the scanner,the basic software that will come with it, and MAY want a graphics conversion program such as IrfanView, depending on what else you already have and what formats you can save in. |
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Subject: RE: Tech, Question - Scanners From: Amos Date: 12 Apr 00 - 04:03 PM Recommended: HP ScanJet. Comes with OCR and software for managing scan results and filtering them through other pograms, such as Photoshop, Word, etc. I've had good luck with mine at work. Make sure you get one that can hook up to your computer, as the design of connections is currently migrating to USB from SCSI and the plugs and leads are entirely different, as is the driver software. I have no vested interest in this recommendation, BTW. |
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Subject: RE: Tech, Question - Scanners From: MMario Date: 12 Apr 00 - 04:05 PM HP about leads the field for usability, quality and price - for scanners at least. |
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Subject: RE: Tech, Question - Scanners From: katlaughing Date: 12 Apr 00 - 04:23 PM That's what I have and I've been very happy with it. Kendall, you can send pix two ways, either by using a scanner, like I mentioned above; or, with a digital camera, which can be conncected to your computer. For software for scanned photos, you need a photoshop type program, like Corel, Adobe, EasyPhoto, or others. If you have a digital camera, it should have software with it, which is easy to install. Using that, you can download pix from the camera, into your computer hard drive, then send them via email. If you scan pix in, it is a good idea to use your software to put them into what is known as jpeg format and, also, to use the photo program to reduce them in size to kb's instead of mb's, that way they send quickly and easily. When you know what kind of programs you have or plant o get, let ume know. If it is one I am familiar with, I'll help you figure it out. I hope this helps some. kat |
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Subject: RE: Tech, Question - Scanners From: MMario Date: 12 Apr 00 - 04:29 PM actually, Kat, he does NOT need a photoshop type program because the scanner should come with a very simple program that will scan and save the file, without having to go into all the various options of the photo-shop type programs. about all you can do with the basic scanner is preview, scan, save. which is really all most people WANT to do... |
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Subject: RE: Tech, Question - Scanners From: Bob Bolton Date: 12 Apr 00 - 07:59 PM G'day all' Kendall: If I need to send 'sheet music', I just scan as Black & White (saves lots of space), 300 dpi and send as a TIF or a GIF. JPG at high compressions eats detail, but is esential for full colour photographs (good editing programs allow setting the level of compression, but that is not what you asked for). Alison: I got a light version of OmniPage OCR with the beautiful little Canon 630 scanner I just bought. The light version doesn't match the professional one I use at work (and the Canon cop-out on an interface for straight scanning doesn't match anything that HP would provide) but it all works and is very neat and compact. I have yet to see a music OCR working well but the local (to you and me) computer nerds swear they do. Dave De Santi has held a few Music/Computer workshops at Jamberoo ... and I think I saw something similar in the Provisional Programme for the National. It must come - and maybe it already has. Regards, Bob Bolton (Who used to do beautiful music calligraphy by hand ... but "Where is the key change, correction, respace control?" |
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Subject: RE: Tech, Question - Scanners From: Jon Freeman Date: 12 Apr 00 - 11:41 PM I was lucky enough to manage to get a UMax scanner through a friend of my mothers who is in the computer trade for £25 a few weeks ago and I am delighted with it. I am interested in trying the music OCR programs. Is there anyone who can recommend any shareware programs to try. I am running a PC /Windows 98 (and Linux though I haven't got the scanner working on that OS yet). Jon |
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Subject: RE: Tech, Question - Scanners From: MK Date: 13 Apr 00 - 12:13 AM Another useful source for scanning tips. |
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Subject: RE: Tech, Question - Scanners From: Bill D Date: 13 Apr 00 - 06:37 PM just as an aside...I remember sitting around a table at a music camp 7-8 years ago, talking about our music notebooks and the new thing we had going called "The Digital Tradition", where songs were being compiled on 3½ floppies and traded..and I mused aloud that it sure would be nice if someone would invent a way to scan words from books and make them editable and indexable...and a guy on the other side of the table said.."oh, they HAVE those now..it's about a $12,000 program..."....and now we can go get color scanners with OCR built in for a few hundred. I can now make free phone calls from my PC to anywhere in the US, listen to folk singing..live! from Wales, Australia, Hawaii, and Colorado...and take a picture and have it viewed by any of those people in just a few minutes..... Sometimes it takes my breath away....and the pace of change is still accelerating.. |
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Subject: RE: Tech, Question - Scanners From: John in Brisbane Date: 13 Apr 00 - 07:52 PM Hi All, I've had a scanner for about 12 months (an HP 5100C) which I picked up second hand. There are some useful tips that I've picked up along the way, but I'll keep this post to the bare minimum for the time being.
I have no hesitation in recommending the following shareware:
- To translate into text ABBYY Fine Reader 4.0 Standard is head and shoulders above the rest (I haven't used Textbridge, but did try a number of the so-called industry standards). I downloaded mine from ZD-Net. The free versions bundled with scanners don't amount to much. I suggest that you at least try try this one out.
- SharpEye is shareware and by far the best of the music conversion programs that I've tried in terms of musical accuracy. It does require some perseverance to get used to LH and RH mouse operations and the processing does take time (I simply vacate my PC and boil the kettle during this process). It's a stable program, but it does benefit from some user tricks to get the most out of it. Some types of music engraving it absolutely romps through while with others it is much less accurate. All in all though if I have to notate a piece that's more than (say) 24 bars I will often click the scanner button rather than the sequencer icon. For piano scores or multi-stave works I go for SharpEye every time.
In terms of hardware I don't have anything too flash, a P166 with good 64M RAM.
Almost forgot - I have about 30 simple tunes (not in the DT)which I scanned some time ago for the express purpose of allowing Mudcatters to try out (say) the SharpEye software. If you don't have a scanner and would like to give it a go I'll send you a scanned image or two. Once you've done the magical music bit you can then send the completed MIDI to the Mudcat for incorporation into the DT.
Regards, John |
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Subject: RE: Tech, Question - Scanners From: Jon Freeman Date: 13 Apr 00 - 09:57 PM Thanks John, I have just downloaded SharpEye and I will have a play with it tommorrow. For those that may want one, here is a link for SharpEye http://www.visiv.co.uk/ Jon |
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Subject: RE: Tech, Question - Scanners From: Jon Freeman Date: 13 Apr 00 - 10:59 PM I should have known that I would not wait till tommorrow... I have just tried it and it got about 95% right on first attempt - looks promising. Jon |
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Subject: RE: Tech, Question - Scanners From: harpgirl Date: 13 Apr 00 - 11:20 PM I have two questions for Jon or anyone else with answers. I have not used my Mustek 1200 III EP scanner which came with Textbridge software because it interfered with my printer and I couldn't figure out how to fix the problem. Any answers? Also, can I use the Sharp Eye software with my scanner? Having this scanner up and running would hasten my additions to the DT!! harpgirl |
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Subject: RE: Tech, Question - Scanners From: Jon Freeman Date: 13 Apr 00 - 11:47 PM Well Harpgirl, I hope someone else can answer your first question becuase I can't. Having said that, I would suggest that your best plan of action is to read through the support pages at http://www.mustek.com and if neccessary send an email to their technical support department describing the problem and any error messages or symptoms. I am new to scanners but for starters they can connect to a computer in different ways. Mine connects to the printer (LPT1) port on my computer and then there is a lead that runs from that to my printer. Although they both work fine, I am not sure whether this setup allows the printer and the scanner to be doing jobs at the same time or not. Other scanners use different interfaces, the USB one seems to be the most popular now. With regard to your second question, I simply scanned an image at 300 DPI (I had my Vista Scan programme set for OCR) and saved it as a TIFF file which SharpEye read quite happily. I think that you will find that any combination of scanner/ scanning software will be able to do that. Jon |
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Subject: RE: Tech, Question - Scanners From: harpgirl Date: 14 Apr 00 - 12:05 AM ...thanks Jon, I appreciate it. You are up late, though, no? |
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Subject: RE: Tech, Question - Scanners From: Jon Freeman Date: 14 Apr 00 - 12:19 AM Im usually up till at least 6am though that may change shortly. I have a change in my ISP deal which means I have 24hrs free internet access (ISP and phone call) rather than just the off peak hours so I might go back to more normal hours instead of trying to get the most out of my free internet time. There again, maybe not - most people I chat with seem to be on my sort of odd hours because of the time zones... I reckon the hours I keep at the moment would probably be right for living somewhere in the middle of the US. Jon (the Vampire) |
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Subject: RE: Tech, Question - Scanners From: John in Brisbane Date: 14 Apr 00 - 01:04 AM Hi Harpy, yes as Jon indicated just about any scanner will work with SharpEye because all it has to do is create a .bmp or .tif (Black and White) file. The techo words are that the scanner must be TWAIN compatible, the main issue being that some older scanners may not be. I suspect that just about all scanners designed for the mass market are compatible.
I usually scan at either 150 or 300 dpi - anything higher than that and you are usually just slowing down the process for little further benefit.
The image file you save MUST be B&W, not colour nor shades of grey. The software which comes with your scanner determines that and has nothing to do with SharpEye or other OCR programs. If there isn't a B&W option it may be labelled as the 'Text Save' option. It took me a while to get this simple crucial step right - once I did this my success rate with SharpEye increased dramatically.
My HP scanner has some fancy software which allows you to crop out any extraneous stuff like illustrations from your image before you save it. Don't fret too much if your scanner software is more basic and lacks this feature. SharpEye and other OCR programs have this facility when you open the image file - it cuts down on processing time a whole lot.
Regards for now, John |
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Subject: RE: Tech, Question - Scanners From: MMario Date: 14 Apr 00 - 09:15 AM JOhn - could you send me one or two of the tunes? thanks...My addy is at bbc's |
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Subject: RE: Tech, Question - Scanners From: John in Brisbane Date: 14 Apr 00 - 09:54 AM MM, it's close to midnight here and Saturday tomorrow. I'll send you a couple of tunes in about 12 hours if my day pans out as I hope. Regards, John |
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Subject: RE: Tech, Question - Scanners From: Jon W. Date: 14 Apr 00 - 10:26 AM On the printer/scanner interference problem: I guess your scanner hooks to your parallel port, then from your scanner a line goes to your printer. If so, you should try to get the latest versions of the drivers for both printer and scanner (these usally can be downloaded from the manufacturer's websites). If that doesn't help, you might need to upgrade your operating system if it's old (ie change Win3.1 or Win95 to Win98). The newer ones are supposed to handle hardware conflicts better. Another thought is to get a separate parallel port card and install it with one of the devices hooked to it and the other to the original port. This would probably be cheaper than an OS upgrade. I'm not gonna guarantee that any of this will work, just suggesting some different approaches. |
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Subject: RE: Tech, Question - Scanners From: MMario Date: 14 Apr 00 - 11:00 AM No problem john, at your convenience, of course... |
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Subject: RE: Tech, Question - Scanners From: Jon Freeman Date: 14 Apr 00 - 11:14 AM Hi Harpgirl, I have just done a little bit of looking, the support page for your model is http://www.mustek.com/Imaging/support/faq/12003epfaq.htm#printer%20problems. It does mention printer problems and gives a link to email them if the suggestions there do not work. I have also had a look at the spec for your scanner. Apparently they don't make that model any more (the new ones have 48 bit color) but it is still pretty recent and you should have no problems using that for music OCR. Jon |
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Subject: RE: Tech, Question - Scanners From: harpgirl Date: 14 Apr 00 - 05:06 PM ...thanks so much Jon...you are a dear...now could you stop by and give me some hands on help???? You could become a Springhopper!!!!! |
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Subject: RE: Tech, Question - Scanners From: Jon Freeman Date: 14 Apr 00 - 09:21 PM Do you reckon I could scan myself in and get sent down the internet? ... Now hears a horrible thought, suppose I was available for download on a web page - I can't cope with one of me let alone multiple copies. Jon |
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Subject: RE: Tech, Question - Scanners From: John in Brisbane Date: 16 Apr 00 - 07:28 PM Sorry MM, been a bit hectic. I'm doing a few thousand kms this week prior to going to the National Folk Festival in Canberra over Easter. I'll squeeze a couple of .bmp's your way as soon as I can. Regards, John |
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Subject: RE: Tech, Question - Scanners From: MMario Date: 17 Apr 00 - 03:21 PM As said before, john, at your convenience. It won't kill me to wait. |
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Subject: RE: Tech, Question - Scanners From: GUEST,LDB Date: 17 Apr 00 - 09:36 PM I have 2 scanners; one cheapie (UMax) that is really good for general purpose, including music reproduction, and one that I use mainly for enhansing old photographs. IMHO, the really important part is not the hardware, but the software. The best of the best is OmniPage Pro that will do anything - but it should for over $800.00 US. For a very good cheap one, I prefer TextBridge Pro from Xerox. Does graphics, text, columns and works with a lot of print sizes and styles. Cost: $59.00 US. LDB |
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Subject: RE: Tech, Question - Scanners From: dick greenhaus Date: 17 Apr 00 - 10:29 PM Hi- Susan and I have been using scanner for at least a half-dozen yeqars, and we wouldn't be without them. The earliest ones we used were hand-held models, which were a major pain (though they beat typing); the full-page flat bed scanners (we both use UMax) are a joy. The conversion to text (OCR) programs supplied with the scanners work fine for lyrics; about the only problems we've encountered is with old books and sheet music- the software thinks that a letter is a pattern surrounded by blank space, so that broken text, or run-together letters aren't recognized. Unless the document being scanned is really bad, that's not a major problem. |
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Subject: Scanning lyrics for OCR From: Joe Offer Date: 20 May 00 - 03:47 PM Hi - can anybody give hints that will make my OCR output more accurate? I'm using the Pagis scanning suite, which is supposed to be pretty good. It includes Xerox Textbridge 9.0. It works very well on lots of things, but does a really awful job on old songooks with yellowed pages. Trouble is, those songbooks are what I most want to copy. Can somebody lead me in the right direction? -Joe Offer- |
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Subject: RE: Tech, Question - Scanners From: Pene Azul Date: 20 May 00 - 05:13 PM Joe, I'm not familiar with that software, but you might try scanning the page, processing it with image editing software then using the OCR. Scanning as a grayscale and playing with the contrast/brightness or, depending on the software you have, scanning as a color image and trying to remove the yellowing might work. You might also be able to adjust the contrast/brightness in your TWAIN driver. PA |
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Subject: RE: Tech, Question - Scanners From: Pene Azul Date: 20 May 00 - 05:27 PM If you can decrease the brightness enough to obscure the background and increase the contrast to bring up the print you should have better results. PA |
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Subject: What Scanner Should I Buy? From: Joe Offer Date: 07 Jan 03 - 02:27 AM Well, I took the jump and bought a new computer, a Pentium 4, 2.4 GHz with Windows XP. Now I'm going through the trauma of moving ten years of data from the old computer, and finding out what won't work on the new computer. One thing that doesn't work is Pagis Scanning Suite, which had made it so easy for me to scan lyrics in songbooks and post them here. I scanned the page and saved it as a file and opened it. Then I highlighted the area of the page I wanted to post, copied it [CTRL-C], and pasted it [CTRL-V] into the "reply to thread" box. It pasted the lyrics into Mudcat as text, so I could copy and paste a song in about five minutes, maybe less. The software that came with my Acer scanner was useless, so I paid fifty bucks for Pagis and got something that worked wonderfully. So, I guess I should buy a new scanner, one that comes with OCR software that works as easily as what I'm used to. I'd also like one that copies well from books - I think that means a slim, low-profile machine with a very narrow margin between the edge of the glass and the edge of the scanner (or am I wrong?). I've more-or-less selected a Canon LIDE 20 scanner, but I wish I knew how well the bundled software works. Anybody got suggestions or pointers? -Joe Offer- |
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Subject: RE: Tech, Question - Scanners From: JohnInKansas Date: 07 Jan 03 - 08:55 AM Joe - I've been using an Epson "Perfection 1200U" flatbed scanner for about 2 years now. At the time, it was about the highest rated (per $) thing on the market that was only a "little bit" above my price range; but I'm sure there are other better ones out by now. The Canon site (quick look only) doesn't give version numbers for the bundled software, but it should be safe to assume that it's all current. The LIDE20, and most of the other Canons I looked at, all seem to come with OmniPage Pro, which is the same program I got with my Epson - but probably at least two generations improved. I use the OmniPage software almost exclusively when I want to save an image, and it's very good. It lets me do a preview, and if necessary, reposition and do another preview (or several) before scanning. You can select (rectangle crop) an area to scan, and "cut out" pretty much what you want for the image. Lots of choices on image type, and you can "tailor" a new "image type" easily if necessary. (I created a "hi-res lineart" setting just to copy wiring diagrams out of maintenance manuals – so that I can really blow them up enough to separate the wire labels.) The "de-screen" setting does wonders for images out of books, magazines and newspapers. One "feature" of OmniPage that took me a while to sort out is that it attempts to save stuff as "multi-page" TIFF files. I don't have any other program that can open one of these, and it's a RPITA process to reopen in OmniPage just to separate out a single shot, save as a separate TIF – just to be able to paste into something else. I save each scan as a separate file, and select "new scan" (not "insert page") for the next shot. I didn't find the OCR capabilities of OmniPage particularly impressive, although that may have been improved in newer versions. It was a toss-up whether it was quicker just to type a copy or to make the necessary corrections to the processed scan. I bit the bullet and bought TextBridge, which I use almost exclusively when I want an OCR conversion of text. A nice feature of TextBridge is that it puts an icon in your Office programs, and you can scan, convert, and insert directly from Word. The OCR conversion accuracy – compared to OmniPage – is spectacular, even if not yet 100 percent. The difficulty with the "direct import" mode is that you don't automatically get a preview to make adjustments – it's a zip-and-go process. I'm not familiar with the ArcSoft PhotoBase software that comes with the LiDE20 scanner. Maybe someone else can comment. Unless someone can offer enthusiastic praise for it – my own two-bits worth would be that you should consider moving up to the Canon D1250U2F scanner – because it bundles Photoshop Elements. If you are ever going to use a digital camera you want Photoshop Elements (unless you've already got PhotoShop 7), and it's a little over $100 US by itself. The $50 difference between the LiDE20 and the D1250U2F gets you a significantly better scanner – and Elements for free. As to scanning books – there ain't no good solution. There are some bad ones. The multifunction type monsters that everyone is selling are generally one of the bad ones, since they usually include an "automatic feed" for single-sheet scans. You can open most of them up, but the feed mechanism gives them a wide edge that makes it hard to position a book. As you guessed, a "thin" edge is something of an advantage. For most book scanning, the real problem is holding the book in place while you make the scan. The ideal would be a big enough scanner to take "both pages" at the same time, but the next best is a support beside the scanner at the same level as the scanning surface. I made a "paper storage box" that the scanner sits on, that brings the scanner surface level with the Laser Printer that's next to it. For the other page, I place a toilet paper roll on top of the Inkjet on the other side – which holds the book at just about right height. The real problem is getting the page to lay flat, and that ain't gonna happen unless you "break the spine" on the book – regardless of what scanner setup you have. Based on my experience, the Canon LiDE20 looks like a good package – with my above suggestion about the D1250U2F as a possible "think about." John |
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Subject: RE: Tech, Question - Scanners From: JohnInKansas Date: 07 Jan 03 - 01:33 PM Also at Joe - your very old post May 00 - I've found that taking a color scan - even if the source is black and white, then putting the color image into Photoshop Elements and converting to black/white will take most of the yellow out of old pages, and usually leaves a pretty clean image. If there's too much "gray" left where the yellow was, you can do an image "adjust threshold" on the black and white to take the gray out - and also get rid of small specks that can interfere with the OCR. I've found that one of the most critical factors in how well OCR works is that the scan has to be "square to the page." Unfortunately, some of the old books weren't printed that way - wavy lines and slopes across the page, etc. TextBridge does (usually) a "straighten" operation before starting the OCR conversion, but it can only handle small amounts of skew automagically. Another thing that sometimes confuses the OCR is "bleed though" from what's on the other side of the page. It may be there - enough for the program to see - even if it's not obvious to the eye. You solve that one by using a sheet the same color as what might bleed placed on top of the page being scanned - e.g. black paper as a backing for newspapers - so that the scanner sees a uniform color (any uniform color works) reflected off the back of the sheet. Helps a lot sometimes. Of course, since you asked two years ago, you've probably learned more tricks than I have by now ... John |
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Subject: RE: Tech, Question - Scanners From: GUEST,Q Date: 07 Jan 03 - 02:49 PM Joe, as well as pages, I scan objects with depth for my records- Indian jewelry to moccasins- so use a scanner with lens- HP Scanjet 6300C. I copy pages from books as well- the page doesn't have to be flat against the glass, so the spine isn't broken, it just sets on the glass (Of course valuable books are photographed instead). The bit of distortion doesn't matter with printed material. I use jerry-built supports if the book is large- just happens that the scanner, supported on a low throw-away side table above the printer- an Epson stylus color printer good for photos- is the same height as my computer next to it. This usually holds the other half of those folio sized coffee table books. I am lost on copy-paste, will have to try it with the programs I have. Most of my stuff is processed through the Adobe program that came with the printer so that I can adjust the stored image. Question: A few sites don't let me (or I don't know how) save the image to disk (or give me something that I can't process with Adobe). I have photographed the flat computer screen instead, which yields a usable image of music sheets, etc. Any ideas on how to save these images directly without taking photos? There may be a format conversion I don't know about. |
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Subject: RE: Tech, Question - Scanners From: John MacKenzie Date: 07 Jan 03 - 03:05 PM Well I got a Mustek Bear Paw scanner, about 18 months ago, and had terrible trouble running it in ME. Now I've upgraded to XP Professional, and it does not want to know. So I guess I'm in the market for a scanner too. Thanks for all the info. Giok |
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Subject: RE: Tech, Question - Scanners From: JohnInKansas Date: 07 Jan 03 - 04:03 PM Guest, Q The small distortion you get from not having the book flat on the glass is often not a problem if you just want a "picture," but it really messes up the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) performance. You didn't say whether you use Windows, but I'll assume that's the case. If you hold down the Alt key while you press "Print Scrn" the active window that's on your screen will be copied to the Clipboard. Go to your "picture program," or even something like word and "Conrol-V" or "Edit - Paste" and the picture will be there. (In some photo programs, you may need a "File - New from Clipboard" rather than just a paste.) If you just hit the "Print Screen" key, without the Alt, you'll copy the whole screen - which you can then paste. Either way, you may want to do a little "cropping," but most programs make that fairly easy. For those sites that block downloading of things, you can sometimes find a link that "points to" the web page you want, right click on the link, and select "save target as" and get stuff that you can't save when you're actually "at" the page. It seems that if the "don't copy gizmo" is on the page you're not supposed to copy from, sometimes this backdoor method will get past it. Be aware that - if it works - you're doing something that the owner doesn't want you to do, which is somewhat impolite. In those rare occasions when I really need to do it, I always make a point of feeling a little guilty about it. Another "trick" anti-copy method is to post pictures as tiled separate images, so that when you "save picture" you only get the "tile" that you clicked in. Several of the art museums use this method. If you're really determined you can save each tile as a separate file and fit them back together in any decent photo software, but it's very tedious and the results are seldom really satisfactory. Giok - you should be able to connect almost any scanner to XP, unless it's so ancient it uses an unsupported antique port configuration. Look in Hardware Manager in the Control Panel, and see if it's there. You may need to get an XP-compatible driver, but you should be able to download one that will work - even if you have to get it for a "similar to" scanner from another builder. The scanner is just a couple of lightbulbs on a motorcycle - it's the software that does the work. John |
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Subject: RE: Tech, Question - Scanners From: Dave Bryant Date: 08 Jan 03 - 06:26 AM Using a scanner with SharpEye. Both SharpEye 1 and SharpEye 2 will work with pre-scanned BMP or TIF images. Version 2 also has the facilty to scan directly into the program and it is only this option that requires the scanner to be TWAIN compatible. All scanners on the market have come with TWAIN compatible drivers since the days of Windows 3 so I shouldn't think that there should any problems on that score anyway. In theory you should even be able to get a satisfactory image from a digital photo or webcam and change it to B&W. |
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Subject: RE: Tech, Question - Scanners From: JohnInKansas Date: 08 Jan 03 - 01:54 PM The TIF files from a digital camera will import into most OCRs without any trouble, but the normal text OCR likes a clean/square image, where the text runs in pretty straight lines. If you "look slantwise" when you take the picture, you're not likely to get a "clean" conversion. A lot of digicams don't have really good lenses, so you get pincushion and balloon effects that the eye ignores - but that strangle OCR. I haven't used any of the music scan/conversion programs much, but I'd suppose they would need to be somewhat more tolerant about the skew and warp. Even with a good scanner, I've found that on some originals you can get better OCR by scanning in color, converting to b/w in image software, and trimming the "threshold" to get rid of the "fur." It sometimes gives cleaner "edges" than a direct b/w scan. John |
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Subject: RE: Tech: Question - Scanners From: Joe Offer Date: 08 Jan 03 - 02:10 PM Lots of good information here, but I'm still not able to find the perfect scanner. I have two main considerations:
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Subject: RE: Tech: Question - Scanners From: GUEST,sorefingers Date: 08 Jan 03 - 02:33 PM I got a used HP scannner - it was top of the line a few years ago, and it does a great job on color pics, photocopying - if you have a HP printer - and OCR. Oddly ,and here I am utterly mystified, if I scan a tune the image when printed is all coverd with little squiggles but the same image photocopied is superb. |
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