scanning microprint/micro-opaque cards

From: Larry Wentzel (lrw5@PSU.EDU)
Date: Thu May 16 2002 - 16:25:54 CDT

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    Message-Id: <200205162126.g4GLQ9m26306@sitelicense.arizona.edu>
Date:         Thu, 16 May 2002 17:25:54 -0400
From: Larry Wentzel <mailto:lrw5@PSU.EDU>
Subject:      scanning microprint/micro-opaque cards
To: mailto:IMAGELIB@listserv.arizona.edu

    <pre> All,

    We're looking for a new way to scan micro-print/micro-opaque cards. The current system we have projects the image on a micro-print reader screen and then scans the image from the screen. This works adequately for 8.5" x 11" images. However, we have micro-print cards with newspaper-sized images on them, which, when projected on the reader screen, take up 8.5" x 14" or larger. Using the current scanner, we have to scan the top and bottom separately and stitch them together. The company that supplied our micro-printer reader says they do not supply different lenses so that we can reduce the 8.5" x 14" images to fit on the reader's screen.

    We tried scanning the micro-print cards on our flatbed scanners (Epson Expression 836XL and 1640XL). You can just barely read the text at the highest optical resolution (1600 dpi); you can also enlarge it, which gives you larger but chunkier text. Short of buying Scitex scanners with their incredible scanning resolutions, could anyone recommend another approach that we could try?

    --Larry Wentzel
    --Digital Preservation Coordinator
    --Penn State University Libraries

    </pre>

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