Begging the flist for advice.

[nenena]

Flist, I know that some of you are arty people with experience scanning and photoshopping things, so I have come to you to beg for help.

I bought a CanoScan LiDE 600 while in Tokyo, and so far, it has been ass. And in the weeks since then, it has only gotten more ass, as so far my ever attempt to scan Soul Eater magazine illustrations have been frought with discoloration so bad that there's no way I can post those scans in good conscience. And I'm talking really, really bad discoloration. Like, "pale violet on the magazine page turns to bright turquoise in the scanner output" bad. FFS, the goddamn scanner is trying to give Kid orange eyes. This is totally unacceptable, and I don't understand why it's happening. I've checked and re-checked my every option using the scanner software itself. I've turned off the color auto-correction, I've made sure that all of the color/channel options are set at "0" corrective value. Nothing that I do seems to be able to make the scanner capable of actually outputting anything remotely resembling the pictures that I'm actually scanning.

There is an option to correct the gamma dohickey in the CanoScan toolbox, but for some reason I'm locked out of clicking that option, and I don't understand why.

I have spent many, many hours diddling around in PSP, attempting to correct color channels, hue saturation, contrast, and etc. In fact, I've tried just about every trick in the PSP toolbox, but it's no good. There's not much that I can do to fix a raw scan where half of the colors are right, but the rest of the colors are coming out on the wrong side of the rainbow.

So, um, flist. Any... advice? Is there something glaringly obvious that I'm doing wrong on the scanning side? Do any of you have any tips for fixing this sort of crap in Photoshop? Or should I just give up on this scanner altogether? (In which case, do any of y'all have recs for a reliable scanner?)

Note that, at least for the time being, I am extremely unkeen on the idea of giving up on this scanner. Returning it would mean taking a trip to Tokyo in which the highway and gas fees would cost me more than the scanner itself, and trying to pawn it off at a recycle shop would mean selling it at a loss.

And yes, I totally am holding this month's SE drama CDs hostage until I can make decent scans of their lovely jackets. Yes, "their." Yes, there are two of them this month.

Comments

[hat-and-sandals.livejournal.com]

Whenever trying to correct things such as color imperfections/paper damage/removing lines, I use levels--are you familiar with adjusting levels in Photoshop?

[nenena.livejournal.com]

I actually have been wanking around with level correction, but so far, no good. Playing with the red channel kinda-sorta fixed one scan that I did, but then no amount of level wankery would fix a different scan, and...

Basically, I feel like I shouldn't have to spend hours experimenting with various Photoshop (well, PSP actually) "fixes" for every scan that I do. Especially since, you know, on my old scanner the raw scans came out looking pretty damn decent right off the bat, and I don't think that's an unreasonable expectation to have of a scanner. :( I feel like my new scanner should be able to do that too, and I wonder why it isn't.

[poisonangel7.livejournal.com]

After all that I'd definitely give up on the scanner, but I understand your reluctance. Maybe try posting one of the raw scans and see if anyone can do anything about the color variance? I'd take a crack at it, though it must be something in the settings or the device itself, and it sounds like the device at this point.

I've never seen a scanner do that. But I have had scanners leave green lines on scans. I don't remember if we ever figured out the actual cause, but we did replace the scanner.

[corinn.livejournal.com]

I'd also like to see an example of a scan.

I know I used to get wackyass scans from an old scanner whose "lid" didn't close perfectly-- whatever light leaked in, the settings went bonkers trying to repair it and I'd end up with a scan divided into thirds of c-m-y unless I pressed down on the lid while scanning. It was a piece of junk, though, so who knows if that'll work.

I've never heard of CanoScan before, but I know a lot of techie companies will replace a defective item if you ship it to them. Which can be... expensive, so... Suck.

[evercool.livejournal.com]

I am very sorry to tell you this, but it sounds like your scanner has merely gotten old or overused and you'll just have to replace it. xD;; That's what usually happens when they finally go to the shitz.;;

[meiousei.livejournal.com]

Man, neither of your Tokyo electronics purchases resulted in complete satisfaction. Way to fail, Tokyo electronics stores. (Although the scanner seems to be less the store's fault than the iRiver debacle.)

Hope you can resolve the problem! I have nothing useful to add to what's already been done and said.

[the-terrible.livejournal.com]

The scanner sounds defective to me. I'd replace it.