Scanning Scores with a Mac

[Generoso]

It would be great if someone would check out the quality of my scans and see if they are good. I have put a list of scans I have done on http://imslp.org/wiki/User:Generoso. Just for the record here is how I am doing the scans. Please feel free to comment, criticize, or suggest other/better/faster ways to scan.

Scanning on a Mac (Powerbook G4) using HP Officejet 5610 All-in-One


1. Connect scanner (USB) and turn scanner on:

2. Choose HP Scan Pro from the dock. (It came with the scanner):

3. Find Music to be scanned (Check for PD):

a. Flat Bed Scanner for a single sheet at a time: Lift up cover and line the paper up with the arrow in the lower right hand corner of the scanner:

(b. Automatic document feeder for multiple sheets: place paper with the text/image up between the two dark grey holders. The scanner will automatically sense that the paper is there...I have not tried this option yet):

4.Press the Adjust button (top right):

5. Choose Black & White (1-bit):

6. Change image Quality resolution to 300:

7. You can scan to different formats. Choose format you want (see HPscreen). The most commonly used ones are:
a. Image File
b. Text File
c. PDF File
d. Printer
e. Tiff to Preview
Adobe Photoshop (scans to application Adobe Photoshop)
f. Adobe Reader (scans to application)
g. Ect….

(I use this. change "Scan to" at the bottom of the page to PDF to Preview:

8. You can adjust the resize…(I leave it at the default of - Image Size = 21.59 x 29.69 cm. & Scale = 100%

9. Hold down the New Scan button to change to Documents

10. Press the New Scan button on the top left corner of the ‘HP Scan Pro’ to preview what you are trying to scan if it is in the flat bed scanner:

11. Adjust the dotted lines to get the whole page (it always starts with just a portion selected!!):

12. After selecting the area which you want to scan (this can be changed by dragging the moving grey dotted line and can only be used when scanning single sheets using the flat bed) press Accept. It will scan the document and then ask If you would like to scan another page? If you have additional pages to scan for the current document, place the next page on the glass and then click Yes

This information here is to help others, remind me how to do it if I forget, and ask if there is a better solution. The scanner I have is very slow. At the settings shown above the time it takes for one (1) page is about 48 seconds.
How can I make it faster?

Thanks, Generoso

[Yagan Kiely]

Ooh thankyou, I just swapped to Mac (Thank god I did too!) and this is the kinda thing I need.

[daphnis]

Generoso, in general they look good. A few suggestions:

1.) The threshold levels will need to be adjusted for different types and ages of paper. If your scans are coming out with lots of salt & pepper-type dots, the threshold is too high. If staff lines appear dotted or too light, it's too low.

2.) Scan to compressed TIFFs with CCITT group 4 compression, which will greatly reduce file size.

3.) If you can and are motivated enough, edit your images in photoshop or Gimp (free alternative) making sure to remove any artifacts and straighten as needed.

If you want further compression with little quality cost and have Acrobat professional, change importing TIFF compression to JBIG2 (lossy).

As for speed, you may not be able to do any better because those all-in-one printers are not the best at scanning. If you're serious about scanning music, you'll really need to invest in a good scanner. With one of mine at the same settings, for example, I can scan an A4-sized page in about 2 seconds. If you'd like scanner recommendations I'd be glad to pass some on.

-daphnis

[Generoso]

Yes please do send scanner recomendations. What do you think of:

CanoScan LiDE600F,A4,USB2, 9600dpi, 48bit, 7 Button

would it be better? I am always thinking portability as usually I carry around a cello.

And thanks for the comments! I shall try them out.

2 seconds for a scan !!!!!! Wow!!!

[daphnis]

The reviews are favorable although I haven't used one myself. In testing those LiDE scanners in the past I wasn't impressed, however. They seem flimsily constructed and very fragile. Epson scanners are great both for high-resolution full-color photos and monochrome. And some of the high-numbered HP scanners are also good, although the software solution is absolute crap.

[ras1]

For monochrome, it's better to do 600dpi, though more time-consuming.

[daphnis]

That's not necessarily true. It's highly dependent on the size and detail of the score. For some of the Durand parts (done on my A3 scanner), because they're so large 300dpi is perfectly sufficient for both viewing and printing, but for miniature orchestral scores 600dpi is needed. The color thresholds for each are often different, too.

[ras1]

Ah yes - sorry. I work in a media lab, and most of the scanning we do is for enlarging pictures for poster printing, so we use 600dpi for black and white. 300 dpi is fine for a score that starts out at or above the size it will be at the end. Provided, of course, that the file is not compressed.

[Vivaldi]

You might also consider using 1200dpi for scanning vocal works or works for large sized orchestras (more than 30 staves per page) printed in octavo or miniature scores, as generally the font and music note sizes are quite small.

[daphnis]

1200dpi?!? Are you serious? What good what that do? I guess if there are some Mahler full orchestral scores printed on match books floating around out there then sure, that may be necessary, but otherwise it's WAY overkill.

[Vivaldi]

In my case, I have to. When I tried scanning miniature scores of operas in 600dpi, the font size of the libretto is so small that scanning in 600dpi is not able to resolve them. I'm not sure if this happens only in my scanner. Another alternative would be to enlarge the miniature scores to A4 or Letter size by photocopying them, and then scan the photocopies in 600dpi, which should be more than adequate.

[Peter]

And remember to use CCITT for your lossless and very efficient compression of monochrome images!

And Generoso, that is indeed rather slow. I'm also having such a slow one - my solution? Go to a copy center or a printing shop, use one of their nice digital machines, and instead of copying, just hit "scan". You'll be having your score on your USB stick in NO time at 600dpi.

[Lyle Neff]

This is a sort of related question, but not having to do with Mac specifically.

I recently started experimenting with Gimp. (I have been using Paint and Arcsoft PhotoStudio up till now, but they leave the size of images too big.) It seems whenever I have to rotate the image, Gimp says that a plugin won't allow the image to be saved, or something like that -- something to do with layers. It gives me the choice to flatten the image, or merge the visible layers. Which of those should I do for score images?

[daphnis]

@ Vivaldi:

Take a look here:
http://imslp.org/wiki/Ariane_et_Barbe bleue_(Dukas%2C_Paul)

This is the complete opera score to Dukas' only opera scanned from the miniature score at 600dpi. It looks perfectly clear on-screen and prints out just fine when enlarged to A4. I suspect it's your scanner that's giving you problems if you need to scan pocket scores that high. What model is it?

@ Lyle Neff and all:

Do NOT use MS Paint to edit scans before compiling them in Acrobat as it changes the sample rate (dpi) from the original and distorts the image. I can't remember the exact steps to rotate an image in Gimp, but in Photoshop it needs to be converted to grayscale first, then you can rotate by any arbitrary amount.

[Lyle Neff]

[...] Do NOT use MS Paint to edit scans before compiling them in Acrobat as it changes the sample rate (dpi) from the original and distorts the image.

Ooops. That's what 99.999% of my contributions have been through. But, now that I have Gimp, I can slowly go through and re-edit all of my raw scans again for better quality (minus shadows)

I can't remember the exact steps to rotate an image in Gimp, but in Photoshop it needs to be converted to grayscale first, then you can rotate by any arbitrary amount.

It seems to be easier on Gimp. Just choose the rotate tool and choose your increment. What I was asking about was the fact that rotating the image seems to make the image gain in layers (or at least the program thinks so), and when you save, the program prompts you to export first, either by merging the layers or by "flattening." It's an extra step, I guess, but with Gimp, because it can save TIFs with CCITT group 4 compression, I (presumably) won't have to reduce the dpi from 300 any more for file-size reasons -- so, that's the merciful loss of a step.