On Scanners

I have the same problem, though I never went so far as to actually get the big scanner. I've had two methods of getting my comics on the 'puter. (1) scan as much as I can fit on the scanner, then do another scan of what's left. (2) (when I'm motivated) take the original to a high quality copy-machine, and make the biggest reduced-sized copy that will fit on my scanner, then scan that. However, these only work if you have a regular scanner to work with....

i saw this scannr on ebay its still pricy but it comes with some of the accessories

http://cgi.ebay.com/Epson-Expression-10000XL-with- A3-Transparency-USB_W0QQitemZ300232940283QQihZ020Q QcategoryZ51087QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewIt em

Dave-
This Mustek scanner is cheap and works really well for 11x17. Here is the URL at Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/Mustek-Express-A3-USB-Scanne r/dp/B000WKSZ5A/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&q id=1213708020&sr=8-5

Instead of buying the $1600 scanner, just use any of the cheaper or even free image mosaicking tools that are out there. This can work with either the digital photographs you've been taking of late or with your scans. I think this one is freeware: http://hugin.sourceforge.net/ and the photo stitcher tool is in one or several of these packages, most of which are under $100. Use "stitch photos together" in Google and you'll get a ton of hits on tools that will do the trick automatically for you. I think I once even saw a plug-in for Photoshop that did it automatically.

In my work I have to take thousands upon thousands of aerial photos and stitch them together into mosaics that cover hundreds or thousands of square miles. The industry is gradually converting from film-based photos to digital photography. The film was 9" x 9" negatives that we had to scan on these huge $100,000 engineering-grade scanners that produced images that were each 250-500 MB. Then we would run them through software that cost $50,000 - $100,000 that would line them all up and stitch them all together so that all the roads and buildings and man hole covers would all line up and be in exactly the correct location. Did I mention that the cameras themselves cost over $500,000?

These days the digital aerial mapping cameras cost $1mil - $2mil. Since the images are already digital there's no scanning, but there is still the expensive software to stitch them all together. These digital cameras have to grab 250MB images every few seconds as the plane flys along. The plane lands with multiple terrabyte hard drive arrays crammed full of imagery. Then the technicians have to calculate the distrotion form the terrain, atmosphere, earth curvature, lens distortion, etc. and stitch the images all togther.

In other words, a LOT of work goes into getting you people those "free" images on Google Earth (by the way, only the blurry images of rural areas are from satellites. All the highly detailed city imagery in Google Earth is from aerial photos, not satellites).

In my post I mentioned a site with software for stiching photos, but I didn't include the URL. Here it is:
http://www.acdsee.com/

Dave,
If you can find one of these:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Epson-Expression-1640xl-Large- Format-Scanner_W0QQitemZ110261666448QQihZ001QQcate goryZ51087QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

they're just as good, & cheaper. They're the precursor to the 10000XL. We use both models at work, with the 10000XL being twice as fast.

I also shoot a lot of copywork, & as long as you have a 8-10mp camera, that really should suffice for web viewing, with minimal Photoshop work.

david

That's nothing. If you want a truly powerful scanner. Try one of these.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081455/ Then you can scan it in by just staring at it intently.

well there are near 3000 people signed up for the mailing list maybe we should all just paypal Dave $1 each :P

For me, I'm in total agreement with mbarstow on this one. I've been using the same mustek A3 USB scanner just about every day for the past three years, and that thing is just a workhorse at a fraction of the cost.

However, I do understand feeling a sense of brand / product loyalty towards the 9800XL if it's worked well for you over the years, but at the very least I think the Mustek is still worth checking into.

Apparently someone is selling the Epson 10000XL for as little as $2130:
Epson Computers - Expression 10000XL Flatbed Scanner - E10000XLGABuy Epson Expression 10000XL Flatbed Scanner - 2400x4800, USB 2.0/Firewire, PC/Mac - Price Range: $2130.00 - $2699.99 from 32 sellers.
http://computers.pricegrabber.com/scanners/m/36602 76/ - Similar pages - Note this
Hope this helps.