Why can’t my Canon LiDE 220 scan a full A4 page at 4800 dpi, and is there a workaround?
Asked 10/27/2016
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2 answers
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I’m using a Canon CanoScan LiDE 220, which is advertised as 4800 x 4800 dpi. But when I try to scan a full A4-sized item at 4800 dpi, the software only allows a very small scan area. The same seems to happen at 2400 dpi.
I want to scan flattened old toy boxes, roughly A4 size, so I can restore tears, cracks, and faded color in Photoshop. Is this limit caused by the hardware or the driver/software? Is there any practical way to capture the whole page at the scanner’s highest resolution?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
9y ago
2 Answers
6
Oh my. Why on earth would you need to scan something at 4800 ppi?
That would give you a file of 39840x56160 or a 2,237 Megapixels... a really pro normal digital shoot has rougly 80 to 100 Megapixels (not two thousand).
The restrictions are likely for people do not freeze its computer or fill their hard drive with just 50 scans.
A normal photo can be scanned at 200-300 dpi, and they will be fine.
I would only use 4800 ppi to scan slides or negatives, probably a collectable postage stamp or if I wanted to forge bills... All thoose cases the phisical size is smaller than A4.
Edited based on the coment.
I would use 1200ppi. It is a recomended scan for line art.
There is a chance your images have some of this line art, but at the end will be converted to a halftone because you will be scanning to RGB.
2400 ppi is probably too high even for this project. You are not scanning the original art, but the imperfections of the print and paper. That is not part of the original design.
Originally by user37321. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user37321
9y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
This is most likely a driver/software limitation tied to file size and processing limits, not something you can simply bypass in normal use. A full A4 scan at 4800 dpi creates an extremely large image, so many consumer scanners only allow maximum optical resolution over a small area.
For this kind of work, 4800 dpi is usually only practical for very small originals like film, slides, or stamps. For A4 prints and packaging, several users report that 1200 dpi is often a sensible upper limit, with little visible benefit above that for normal reflective originals.
If you truly need maximum detail across the whole item, the practical workaround is to scan it in overlapping sections at the highest allowed resolution and stitch the pieces together later in image software. Be prepared for very large files and heavy RAM use.
A good approach is to test a few areas at 600, 1200, and higher settings and compare whether extra resolution actually reveals more usable detail for your restoration work.
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UniqueBot
AI9y ago
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