Best Ink/Paper Combo for text documents to be scanned (don't need OCR)

[b_paul_gill]

What I am trying to find out is what is the best pencil/pen/ink/paper to use to get the best quality scans of handwritten text. I am not interested in OCR, and don’t' need the scans to be searchable. I don't think using the pens that write on tablets will give me the precision I need. All I need is the ability to clearly display this scanned image in a web page.

 

Would prefer to be able to have at least three colors (blue, black and red) but could live without this. Also would prefer to be able to use pencil for certain portions, but have been told that pencil does not scan that well.

 

Any thoughts?

[watch_art]

i would think any decent quality paper would scan fine with anything on it at all. i used to scan lots of pencil drawings when i was in high school (late 90s) and never had any problem, even with my dumpy junky scanner and plain jane copy paper. whoever told you pencil doesn't scan was full of baloney. all you need is a decent scanner that can scan photos, and set it to scan all your drawings or text or whatever as color photo at 300 dpi, then adjust the images in photoshop or fast stone viewer or whatever later on.

an 8 1/2 by 11 inch scanned sheet looks pretty good at about 750-850 pixels wide at 150dpi in my experience.

 

good luck.

Edited April 11, 2010 by watch_art

[JohnS-MI]

Just about any white paper works fine. I recommend writing on only one side. If you write on both sides, the scanner light will almost certainly go through the paper, bounce off the white reflector in the scanner and cause show-through. If I have to scan anything doublesided (unless VERY thick), I back it up with a sheet of black paper to avoid that reflection, then adjust bnrightness and contrast a little.

 

In color, any dark saturated ink works well. If you convert to grey-scale, green doesn't seem to work that well, everything else does.

 

I find the biggest problem is the paper background isn't white enough. I do use the level histogram in Photoshop, and do a levels adjust by dragging the white and black marks to the beginnings of the bimodal distribution in levels, and manipulate the gamma adjust. I can do nearlyt the same (but not visualized as elegantly) using the controls in a free photo editor like Irfanview.

[b_paul_gill]

i would think any decent quality paper would scan fine with anything on it at all. i used to scan lots of pencil drawings when i was in high school (late 90s) and never had any problem, even with my dumpy junky scanner and plain jane copy paper. whoever told you pencil doesn't scan was full of baloney. all you need is a decent scanner that can scan photos, and set it to scan all your drawings or text or whatever as color photo at 300 dpi, then adjust the images in photoshop or fast stone viewer or whatever later on.

an 8 1/2 by 11 inch scanned sheet looks pretty good at about 750-850 pixels wide at 150dpi in my experience.

 

good luck.

 

 

While pencil will scan and produce an image I am trying to figure out how to produce the best quality image. Looking at

 

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php?/topic/82228-paper-exchange/

 

I think the second set of hash marks (three vertical lines crossed by two horizontal lines) next to "Soft Fine" are by far the best. So I would prefer to use a pen like that.

[b_paul_gill]

Just about any white paper works fine. I recommend writing on only one side. If you write on both sides, the scanner light will almost certainly go through the paper, bounce off the white reflector in the scanner and cause show-through. If I have to scan anything doublesided (unless VERY thick), I back it up with a sheet of black paper to avoid that reflection, then adjust bnrightness and contrast a little.

 

In color, any dark saturated ink works well. If you convert to grey-scale, green doesn't seem to work that well, everything else does.

 

I find the biggest problem is the paper background isn't white enough. I do use the level histogram in Photoshop, and do a levels adjust by dragging the white and black marks to the beginnings of the bimodal distribution in levels, and manipulate the gamma adjust. I can do nearlyt the same (but not visualized as elegantly) using the controls in a free photo editor like Irfanview.

 

Yep, totally agree with just using one side of the paper. However, with the volume of images I will be dealing with don't think Photoshopping is an option. Would prefer to just buy better paper so I don't have to deal with Photoshop.

[ZeissIkon]

Assuming you're scanning in color and at or above 200 ppi (appr. .12 mm pitch), virtually any ink/paper combination that you can stand to write with/on ought to scan well, and if the paper is a true white, automatic white balance should give a pretty good approximation of the actual ink color (as opposed, say, to writing on the greenish-brown tinted Smart Genesis "Moss" stock I particularly like).

[RMN]

Hi

 

As always: it depends.

 

1: scan in color, greytones or black/white?

2: one page at a time, with time to adjust? or large quantities of scans in batchprocessing (one setting has to fit all)?

3: how large should the resulting file become? The more dpi, the clearer the picture but the larger the file.

 

If you want to do it quick, without having to adjust much and have small files suitable for uploading: Go for black/white in a lower dpi setting.

 

And that means you'll want CONTRAST.

 

reds and blues and yellows are low contrast. We used to have a problem with our scanner at work. Anything written with blue pen was illegible.

 

Go for black and dark-brown for contrast. And go for a thicker pen-point (medium to broad) as a fat line scans better.

 

If you use ruled paper this might give difficulties in B-W scanning, but no problem for color or grayscale.

 

 

Hope this helps.

 

 

D.ick

[Juicyjones]

Go for max contrast. White paper, dark ink. Or any ink really, but white paper.

[b_paul_gill]

Hi

 

As always: it depends.

 

1: scan in color, greytones or black/white?

2: one page at a time, with time to adjust? or large quantities of scans in batchprocessing (one setting has to fit all)?

3: how large should the resulting file become? The more dpi, the clearer the picture but the larger the file.

 

If you want to do it quick, without having to adjust much and have small files suitable for uploading: Go for black/white in a lower dpi setting.

 

And that means you'll want CONTRAST.

 

reds and blues and yellows are low contrast. We used to have a problem with our scanner at work. Anything written with blue pen was illegible.

 

Go for black and dark-brown for contrast. And go for a thicker pen-point (medium to broad) as a fat line scans better.

 

If you use ruled paper this might give difficulties in B-W scanning, but no problem for color or grayscale.

 

 

Hope this helps.

 

 

D.ick

 

1. Need to be able to distinguish between two colors, so B&W won't work.

2. Doing one page at a time is not pratical so need to able to do batch processing.

3. Was planning on using TIFF files so can be reasonable size.

4. Blank paper will be used.

 

Any recommendations on SPECIFIC pens/ink to use?

[Juicyjones]

Any pen writing with any ink will scan. Use Noodler's Bulletproof Black and whatever pen you already own with medium or fine points. What pens do you have?

[b_paul_gill]

Any pen writing with any ink will scan. Use Noodler's Bulletproof Black and whatever pen you already own with medium or fine points. What pens do you have?

 

Yes, I realize any pen/pencil will scan.

 

I am trying to determine what is produces the BEST quality scan - nice clean lines... See my earlier response where I linked to another posting on here and you can see that only one of those produced a nice and consistent line quality. I contacted that poster and he said that the text to the right of the the lines I liked was the same pen so that won't work too well if it is not consistent. So none of those quality pens consistently produced a nice clean line.

 

I don't have any fountain pens. I have a Mont Blanc ball point, but I think that is too fine to use for this purpose. For what I want to do I am willing to purchase a quality pen and ink so am trying to determine what that is.

 

Looked up the pen you mentioned. The black is fine but the "Violet Vote" is not. See the image at:

http://www.pendemonium.com/ink_noodler.htm

 

I also do not want to use too think of a pen. My main use is text not for graphics.

[Juicyjones]

There is no one answer. Use a pen with a fine to medium nib. Every pen in the world comes in fine and medium so the world is your oyster. Scan them at 120-200 dpi in color. You'll have to experiment and try to see what you like. Play with the curves a little to enhance contrast. You are going to have to use Photoshop if you're serious about processing a lot of images. Trust me, your scanner software is not going to magically produce exactly what you want -- scanner software sucks because Photoshop exists.

 

That scan of Violet Vote on that site looks totally fine to me. No?

[b_paul_gill]

There is no one answer. Use a pen with a fine to medium nib. Every pen in the world comes in fine and medium so the world is your oyster. Scan them at 120-200 dpi in color. You'll have to experiment and try to see what you like. Play with the curves a little to enhance contrast. You are going to have to use Photoshop if you're serious about processing a lot of images. Trust me, your scanner software is not going to magically produce exactly what you want -- scanner software sucks because Photoshop exists.

 

That scan of Violet Vote on that site looks totally fine to me. No?

 

Photoshop is not an option (unless I can create some sort of script) as I will have a few thousand pages to do. So will need to purchase good scanner (but that's a topic from somewhere else).

 

Yes I realize there is no one perfect answer, bu was hoping to get at least some specific suggestions. So far I have only one specific recommendation.

 

The reason I do not like the scan of the Violet Vote is that the line quality is not consistent. It is thicker and darker in places. Perhaps the black ink just hides that problem well so I don't notice it.

[Juicyjones]

There is no one answer. Use a pen with a fine to medium nib. Every pen in the world comes in fine and medium so the world is your oyster. Scan them at 120-200 dpi in color. You'll have to experiment and try to see what you like. Play with the curves a little to enhance contrast. You are going to have to use Photoshop if you're serious about processing a lot of images. Trust me, your scanner software is not going to magically produce exactly what you want -- scanner software sucks because Photoshop exists.

 

That scan of Violet Vote on that site looks totally fine to me. No?

 

Photoshop is not an option (unless I can create some sort of script) as I will have a few thousand pages to do. So will need to purchase good scanner (but that's a topic from somewhere else).

 

Yes I realize there is no one perfect answer, bu was hoping to get at least some specific suggestions. So far I have only one specific recommendation.

 

The reason I do not like the scan of the Violet Vote is that the line quality is not consistent. It is thicker and darker in places. Perhaps the black ink just hides that problem well so I don't notice it.

 

 

That is called 'shading' when you see different densities in the line. Some inks do some don't but Noodler's BB doesn't.

 

I think you may have it backwards with Photoshop. Photoshop is what makes processing thousands of pictures possible. Without Photoshop you have no automation, with it you can automate anything. I've been using PS since I was a beta tester 21 years ago and I think it's the best thing ever.

 

TBQH I think you need to take this to the ink forum because most of your questions are really about ink and you might get better answers.

Edited April 11, 2010 by Juicyjones

[b_paul_gill]

There is no one answer. Use a pen with a fine to medium nib. Every pen in the world comes in fine and medium so the world is your oyster. Scan them at 120-200 dpi in color. You'll have to experiment and try to see what you like. Play with the curves a little to enhance contrast. You are going to have to use Photoshop if you're serious about processing a lot of images. Trust me, your scanner software is not going to magically produce exactly what you want -- scanner software sucks because Photoshop exists.

 

That scan of Violet Vote on that site looks totally fine to me. No?

 

Photoshop is not an option (unless I can create some sort of script) as I will have a few thousand pages to do. So will need to purchase good scanner (but that's a topic from somewhere else).

 

Yes I realize there is no one perfect answer, bu was hoping to get at least some specific suggestions. So far I have only one specific recommendation.

 

The reason I do not like the scan of the Violet Vote is that the line quality is not consistent. It is thicker and darker in places. Perhaps the black ink just hides that problem well so I don't notice it.

 

 

That is called 'shading' when you see different densities in the line. Some inks do some don't but Noodler's BB doesn't.

 

I think you may have it backwards with Photoshop. Photoshop is what makes processing thousands of pictures possible. Without Photoshop you have no automation, with it you can automate anything. I've been using PS since I was a beta tester 21 years ago and I think it's the best thing ever.

 

TBQH I think you need to take this to the ink forum because most of your questions are really about ink and you might get better answers.

 

Ok thanks, will take this discussion to the ink forum. Yes if it is possible to create a script I'll be sure do that.

[JohnS-MI]

There is no one answer. Use a pen with a fine to medium nib. Every pen in the world comes in fine and medium so the world is your oyster. Scan them at 120-200 dpi in color. You'll have to experiment and try to see what you like. Play with the curves a little to enhance contrast. You are going to have to use Photoshop if you're serious about processing a lot of images. Trust me, your scanner software is not going to magically produce exactly what you want -- scanner software sucks because Photoshop exists.

 

That scan of Violet Vote on that site looks totally fine to me. No?

 

Photoshop is not an option (unless I can create some sort of script) as I will have a few thousand pages to do. So will need to purchase good scanner (but that's a topic from somewhere else).

 

Yes I realize there is no one perfect answer, bu was hoping to get at least some specific suggestions. So far I have only one specific recommendation.

 

The reason I do not like the scan of the Violet Vote is that the line quality is not consistent. It is thicker and darker in places. Perhaps the black ink just hides that problem well so I don't notice it.

 

To your last point, you may not like fountain pens. The wider/narrower is affected by pressure. A flexible nib opens more and creates a wider line with more pressure, a stiffer nib less so. An italic nib has asymmetric contact with the paper so width is dependent on stroke direction. All pens and inks leave a small puddle of heavier ink at the end of a stroke (may not be noticeable with black). Some of these things are prized by people who like fountain pens, but you could (partially) avoid them by using an Esterbrook with a manifold nib (so stiff it can sign carbon copies). VERY dark inks will help hide shading.

 

However, you might prefer Pilot G2 Medium nib (0.7 mm) gel pens. I use them for drawing (with straightedges) on the same paper I write text on with fountain pens. The red, blue, and black all scan well, have no line variation or shading. You might also prefer technical drawing pens such as Rapidograph; however, they are intended for drafting and aren't a very pleasant writing experience.

 

If you use PS scripts, use the same paper, pens and inks throughout. Write the script to optimize a "practice page" representing all inks to be used, and then stick to those choices.