I unboxed the wide A3 scanner I bought with the site funds. (Mustek A3 1200 USB PRO) about six months ago. I have all these japanese and korean arcade magazines to scan for the site, as well as tech docs. The 1200 USB PRO came bundled with Ulead photo express 5 SE. (more about this choice later) I installed the scanner, and ran the OEMstand alone twain app. The main app for the scanner has toggles and NO VISUAL PREVIEW. Read that shit again. The scanner app has no visual preview. It will not do all resolution at A3, in fact each resolution is limited to a set size. However, it doesn't tell you the sizes, so it's a matter of trying to scan, getting the error message and lowering it until you hit the mystery cutoff. I loaded up the bundled software, and it has a much better twain scan application, but now 48bit color wont work. I scan an A3 page at 900 dpi, and the program shows the image. I go to rotate it 90 degrees and the program tells me I have insufficient memory. Mind you I have max ram and a few hundred free gigs, and swap file set to system controlled. I go to check support, and the program is no longer supported as the manufacturer has changed hands twice. Corel is the new owner, and their idea of support is to offer me 20% off a retail box of corel. Mind you this scanner is brand new and the software is unsupported. Not just unsupported, but buggy. After much research, I have found that the program bundled with the scanner can't handle large images created by the very product it was bundled with, and as a result I have to scan at half resolution. So as I said, mustek sucks the big one and this is one sour lemon of a product. It works just fine in photoshop, but I don't own PS and I'm not spending $$$ to fix a problem like this. I'm calling them tomorrow to hear what they have to say about this.
Sounds like a piece of shit.. I also got a mustek scanner years ago. It's a standard A4 one that only does black and white and takes over a minute to scan a page. Piece of crap too.
Yeah I had a mustek a long time ago, worst scanner ever. Hell the printer scanner hp combo makes copies way faster, and ITS A LOW END MODEL!!
That's your problem. The program likely has some type of soft limit on size (memory). 900 DPI? Huge. 300 really won't suffice? Also note that some programs don't let go of tmp files until they're shut down. When I scan B1 posters (yes, you read that right) I can only scan two, then have to shut down Photoshop and restart as 300 DPI x 8 scans per poster (then rotating some) takes up a lot of swap, and I eventually run out. This is also another problem. I have an Epson A3+ scanner. It rocks the house, but it's old as balls. SCSI connector and bulky. I got it for about $100 though (used) and I've got no complaints. http://www.gamengai.com/bn_inf.php?type=poster&id=1812 What about Gimp? or Photoshop Elements? I've found when it comes to graphics, any pack-in software is asshole, and I just wind up using Photoshop.
I was also a mustek scanner user. Load of shite they are. I ended up going for one ofthose EPSON Colour copier/scanner/fax/printer in one jobbies. Now that is a very good machine. Don't even need the PC on to scan stuff! Mind you to get the best out of it I use it along with photoshop 7. A4 max size however you can have up to something crazy like 1200 dpi at 48bit colour. More than enough :nod: Yakumo
I could have told you Mustek is homo. Although I have a Canon here with no Vista 64 drivers, kind of sucks I gotta use my laptop to scan shit.
Problem is they only sell ONE A3 scanner in the US. I can ditch this one on ebay, but then I need someone to get one in EU, ship it here.. cost a ton of cash.
A classic example of you get what you pay for. ;-) ...Would be like someone from the EU saying that they wanna get the cheapest A3 scanner available, so they import a Mustek from the U.S.
Mustek? I wouldn't touch Mustek with a 10-foot poll. Everything about their products reeks of cheapness. I mean Chinese/Taiwanese companies are cheap, but they take it pretty close to rediculous. The only stuff I'd buy from them (if forced) would be something I fully indended to throw away right after or misuse on purpose. Which leads to the question, does Aiptek sell something comparable? The prices for products are about par, but the quality is usually measurably better with Aiptek.
our mustek scanner was so bad, my brother built an exposure unit out of it ^^ our new canon works a treat
HP makes A3 size scanners. Expensive, but worth the money.. Some of the SCSI ones won't work with newer OSes. I worked on a system that kept BSOD whenever a SCSI HP A3 scanner was plugged in and the customer had XP. The scanner works great under Windows 98 and 2000.
try the windows XP integrated scanner application. It's easy to use and has a preview. I use it with my scanner Epson scanner because I don't want to install hundreds of megabyte of software an drivers.
I also used to have a mustek scanner and yes they are complete crap the software package that came with the scanner would BSOD after about 2 scans. I would give G.I.M.P. a tree think of it as a freeware version of photoshop. yeah its not as supported by commercial plugins etc but being free kinda makes up for that. Its what I use on my HP all in one to scan. But I'm not a scanning pro either.
Its a shame that the scanner is so bad, possibly the hardware is ok but the bundled applications are shit With a piece of shit like that Im sure the manufature wouldnt mind if you disassembled the software to find the protocol and then write your own drivers / front end
