Best Business Card Scanners
The Xerox DocuMate 3125 color desktop scanner quickly converts your documents, plastic cards and forms into digital files, then securely saves them on your computer or in the cloud ready to be accessed another day when needed. Create searchable PDF files to make it easy to find scanned documents.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I own 2 and use it on a local network."
"Takes up little space and trays can be closed easily when not in use - this takes up even less space and helps to keep clean."
"Best desktop scanner I have ever had."
"Good to use in a small business."
"This is our third scanner."
"Worked OK for a while."
VuPoint Solutions Magic Wand Portable Scanner - Ever want to put all of your pictures on your computer but didn't have the time to sit there and scan one after the other? The VuPoint Solutions "Magic Wand" Portable Scanner allows you to scan the documents that matter the most to you, and back them up on your computer. INCLUDES BONUS OCR SOFTWARE - Comes with Optical Character Recognition software, allowing you to convert saved documents into text editable and searchable files compatible with popular word processing and spreadsheet software (software is Windows only; not compatible with Mac OS).
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I'm a graduate student and I spend a lot of time in libraries poring through books that can't circulate (rare, antique, etc.)."
"Scanning. Turn it on by pressing and holding the silver button for two seconds. If you move too slowly, the green "scanning" light will turn off, and the counter will not have advanced. I will edit this review when I scan periodicals, to discuss the ease of following the curve while canning from an open book or magazine."
"With little to no time, I was scanning and making impressive scans in a very short period of time. This scanner has surpassed my expectations and is replacing all my conventional scanners that I have at home."
"One major design flaw is that one cannot really confirm quality or completeness of individual scan until its uploaded."
"If you want an EXTREMELY compact, EXTREMELY simple item that will produce readable scans with a bit of practice, for personal use, then it goes up to 5 stars. If I was going to image 30 pages, or use images clipped into Powerpoint for a business presentation, I'd (politely) kick my wife out of the other office to use a flatbed for fifteen minutes. This will be the budget, ten-second, one page back up scanner in the more remote home office."
"The scanner head is too far from the edge to reach close to the book binding, I still have to tear apart the book to scan it but other than that it is good quality product."
"First, if it's even remotely important, I scan it twice because I've had some occasions where the scanned document just didn't record."
Scans and recognizes business cards, then saves contact information into Address Book or Microsoft Outlook; turns business cards into accurate digital format in a few seconds. Scan, recognize, and save contact information directly turn business cards into accurate digital format in a few seconds. Manage business cards efficiently.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Install the provided software (and activate it), plug in the scanner, calibrate it, and start scanning your cards. My Background: I am a data consultant and work with large volumes of vendor invoices (up to hundreds of thousands for some projects) and run Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to turn the images into text-searchable documents. It's not always the software's fault, more often than not, it's poor quality images that are difficult to interpret (O's and zeros often mixed up, etc.). Because of this, I knew going into this purchase that unless the business card was white, contained no images, and used a very basic font that it would likely have some errors. While I may have to make some corrections every now and then, it still saves me a significant amount of time versus inputting the business card manually."
"It's not perfect, but it reads cards better and is more user friendly than any of the other card scanners that I have used before. In comparison we ordered the top rated Dymo card scanner first, and it wasn't compatible with my bosses Mac, and after contacting Dymo's customer service (which was really hard to reach) he was told the software implants a "hidden file" that makes redownloading the software impossible."
"I decided that this was the better answer to organizing and quickly retrieving information from the 400+ business cards that I have collected to date. I started using it almost immediately upon opening the box and now I have set aside time every day for scanning cards. The OCR function works very well but depending on the design, layout and fonts on any specific card you may have to spend an additional minute editing."
Best Flatbed Scanners
— The Epson Perfection V600 Photo delivers outstanding quality scans from photos, film, slides and everyday documents. Featuring DIGITAL ICE for both film and prints, one-touch color restoration and. Arcsoft Photostudio. , this scanner provides a complete photo restoration solution. 6400 x 9600 dpi for film Enlargements up to 17” x 22” Built-in Transparency Unit (TPU) For slides, negatives and medium-format film. up to 6 x 22 cm Scan everything you need Film, photos, documents, invoices, receipts, books, magazines and 3D objects Complete photo restoration solution. Before. After. Before. After. Before. After. DIGITAL ICE for Prints Remove the appearance of tears. and creases from damaged photos DIGITAL ICE for Film Remove the appearance of dust and. scratches from film Easy Photo Fix For one-touch color restoration Increased productivity. ReadyScan LED technology Fast scanning and no warm-up time Optical Character Recognition (OCR) For converting scanned documents into editable text Four customizable buttons Instantly copy, scan-to-email and create PDF’s Features/Benefits Create extraordinary enlargements from film — 6400 x 9600 dpi for enlargements up to 17" x 22" Scan slides, negatives and medium–format panoramic film — built-in Transparency Unit Remove the appearance of tears and creases from damaged photos — DIGITAL ICE for Prints Remove the appearance of dust and scratches from film — DIGITAL ICE for Film Restore faded color photos with one touch — Epson Easy Photo Fix included Achieve greater productivity — convert scanned documents into editable text with ABBYY FineReader Sprint Plus OCR Quickly complete any task — instantly scan, copy, scan-to-email and create PDFs with four customizable buttons Energy-efficient LED for fast scans — exclusive ReadyScan LED light source means no warmup time, faster scans and lower power consumption Take your photos further — Arcsoft Photostudio included, to help edit and enhance your digital images Weight and Dimensions (W x D x H) — Weight: 9.0 lb, Dimensions: 11" x 19" x 4.6". What's in the Box Perfection V600 Photo color scanner Transparency unit (built into lid) Film holders for: 35mm film and mounted slides & 6 x 22 cm medium-format film Scanner software CD-Rom Arcsoft Photostudio DVD Start Here poster Hi-Speed USB 2.0 cable AC adapter and power cable. Remove the appearance of dust and scratches from film — DIGITAL ICE for Film.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"11th Day Update: all 5400 slide transparencies (35mm mounted slides) have been scanned (at 2400dpi) and burned to DVDs. That was with only selective use of Color Restoration, which doesn't add anytime to the scan. We would look at each set of 4 preview images and click and highlight the ones we wanted to color restore (click on the slide, do NOT click on the checkbox...leave the checkbox on each preview CHECKED ON...that's what lets the scanner know you want to scan all 4 slides that you just previewed). Background: BFA in Art with concentration in Darkroom Photography; Own my own darkroom for 25 years; Decade as an Imaging Specialist/Scanner Operator (you can skip the next few paragraphs and get to the settings which worked well for us while scanning a bunch of old slides). Every day for a decade, 8 hours a day I used PhotoShop 3.0+, flatbed scanners, image setters and even a Nikon Coolscan slide scanner with an automatic slide-feeder. As I recall the slide feeder could hold about 40 mounted slides and took about 8 minutes per slide to scan. I wanted to set up a new, easy scan station for my father to scan his old slides: 54 slide projector carousels (round thingies) filled with a maximum 100 slides each. SETTINGS FOR SLIDE SCANNING. I installed the CD software, then plugged in the machine, and finally I turned it on with the ON/OFF button HIDDEN on the right side of the machine. So, for decent slide scans here is a nice setting list: Mode = Professional. Document type = Positive film. Image Type = 48-bit. Resolution = 2400 dpi. CHECK the unsharp mask box to turn it on, set level to LOW. CHECK the Color Restoration box to turn it on. Click preview, select and flip any upside-down slides with the options. Click Scan and sit back and wait while all 4 slides are scanned (a little under 4 minutes to scan and auto-name and auto-save). ACTUAL PROJECT: Each slide takes 1 minute to scan, auto-name and auto-save. 54 boxes of slides x 100 slides each = 5400 slides. Yes, at about 1 minute per slide it's a little slower (at 2400dpi) but you can save a little time and scan at 1200dpi, or even go down to 100dpi, lol. A minute per slide is a lot slower than 1 second per slide. I'd rather spend two weeks getting 5,400 great scans then spend 5 hours getting crappy scans that look terrible and I'll end up deleting. WHAT DIDN'T WORK WELL (FOR US) AND WHAT DID. First off, use the professional mode for slides. The automatic easy mode has drawbacks: it only allows 1200dpi scans at the highest setting; even though it's only 1200dpi it seems to take longer than the professional mode at 2400dpi; even though in the manual it says you can skip the preview...it actually does one preview at a time and shows that to you while it scans, which means the preview portion takes FOUR times as long. Also, when you select the color restoration option: the little preview is color restored, but the scan isn't! So: it takes 2x-4x as long and doesn't actually apply color restoration to the scan that is autosaved to your computer. Thus: if you want to scan, color restore and sharpen you have to use the professional mode (and re-check the color restoration box after selection "all" 4 previews with the blue frame highlighting them AFTER EVERY PREVIEW!!!!). I fiddled a little with the grain removal setting, but it just kind of blurred my test slides. There are other settings were you want to: UNcheck the write over files with the same name (why would you want to overwrite your previous scans? TIFFs are still a tad bigger, but if you're scanning once and then throwing away your slides then scan huge and save as TIFF for that once in a lifetime chance of archiving. Somewhere in the advanced settings option when you first open Epson Scan you can also uncheck the "include color profiles" box. Unless you're sending your files to a professional printing press that needs specific color profiles THIS JUST BLOATS THE SIZE OF EACH OF YOUR SCANS! I don't care about LAB COLOR vs CMYK vs Srgb ICC profiles and when I was a professional our printers (and by printers I mean the humans who ran huge color printing presses that are about 40' long) would set their prepress to strip out/ignore any color profiles accidentally left attached to image files we sent them...because THEY wanted to control the color, not some random file that nobody on our end looked at or modified or fixed or cared about. UNLESS YOU'RE A PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER SENDING SCANS TO A COLOR PRINT PUBLICATION THAT REQUIRES YOU TO SEND ALONG COLOR PROFILES uncheck the box and save space on your computer. Click on Epson Scan. Select "Professional" and "Current Settings". 2400dpi. Check color restoration box on. Check unsharp max on / Medium. Dust spray and put in 4 slides. ****VERY IMPORTANT STEP RIGHT HERE: Click the "ALL" button the highlight all four previews with blue frames and then click "RESTORE COLOR CHECKBOX TO ON"/ (The color restoration feature shuts itself off after every preview, and if you turn it back on it only applies to the previews with blue frames around them!). This is for "pros" who only color restore 1 out of every 4 slides or whatever. Computer (we have a 2/3 year old Dell with i5 core processor and Windows 10, regular non-solid state hard drive). This Scanner. Dust-off Sprayer. USB Thumbdrive (archive 1). Blank DVDs (archive 2 or more if you burn multiple copies to send to various relatives). External HD (archive 3). Time: 1 minute per slide. This thing is heavier than my 25 year old Umax PowerLook III scanner which was used in by my at my job in a multi-million dollar publishing empire. I don't know who got to take home the Nikon CoolScan slide scanner (w/auto-feeder), LOL! Do you have only a month to scan 50,000 slides? Well, then contract a vendor to do them for 60 cents per slide and then sell you an external hard drive with your scans on it...plus shipping...plus expedited service...plus insurance which will give you a few dollars if the shipper looses all your slides so instead of your photos you'll have like $300 and the horror of loosing priceless, irreplaceable pictures. By the way: for my 5,400 slides it would cost at least $3,240 to have them scanned (plus shipping, plus hard drive they return the scans on, etc.). If anything I gave you: a template to plan your project/setup/costs & some easy start-up settings to get great slide scans. UPDATE: It's the second day of ownership, and even with our time spent testing settings, setting up a light box, unpacking and dusting off 54 boxes of 100-slide carousel wheels we managed to scan 2 entire boxes out of the 54! The ONLY THING THAT SUCKS ABOUT IT IS: after every 4 slide batch is previewed the "Color Restoration" box UNchecks itself. So you have to select all four previews and ONLY THEN click to check the color restoration box, and then scan. I can spend 5-15 minutes trying to color correct an RGB color image, and even longer for a CMYK image for print (textbook, magazine, book cover, etc.). After you do a few dozen you won't even have to think: your hand will just click ALL and Color Correct and SCAN. Good luck, have fun, spend a day or two scanning and rescanning a few documents to get the perfect settings and physical workflow that works for you!"
"While that sounds like an over whelming task, it has changed my approach to working with my family archives. Rather than simply copy them forward to digital in their original condition, I am being handed an opportunity to improve them. But, with the right mindset you can enjoy the experience of enhancing those photographic captures that you have kept and treasured, but seldom viewed. While in LR, as the last enhancement, edit the photo in a separate software, Noiseless CK. While the process takes time, it is enjoyable and rewarding to see the old memories once again before you in Kodak Carousel brightness and color -- and better. I doubt this machine is up to professional application either in terms of endurance or image quality."
"The second picture was scanned with Digital ICE and you can see how it removed all the dust and imperfections that were left on the slide even though I cleaned it using canned air."
"I got rid of all my darkroom equipment years ago along with all my film cameras, but still had a lot of 6x6 and 35mm negatives and Kodachrome slides. Also, when working with negatives and slides, just like you were working in darkroom, dust is a real PITA at these levels of enlargement."
Best Document Scanners
Intelligent scan correction performs a quick quality check on your scans - features include auto color detection, auto rotation for upside down documents, and blank page removal.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"It didn't eat any pages (of really soft paper, not regular paper), it didn't skip any pages, and the auto-detect for black-and-white versus color and blank-pages is ridiculously helpful. It even had no problem sucking in very hard paper (like a cover) and then right back to soft paper of a different size! It needs another flip-up lip to catch the paper as it comes out, otherwise it starts to pop off and dump on the desk."
"They cut down on paper considerably, as we scan documents brought in by clients and hand them back to the clients. These scanners save on filing time, which saves money and tedium for my employees, and they save money on file cabinets and floor space. The documents scan to pdf and are then easily stored in electronic files (backed up in a dual core hard drive onsite and in cloud storage offsite)."
"When you scan as much as we do, little annoyances become a big deal. I like how the one-touch scan button understands when I want to begin a scan and resume a scan. The eject button and fold out top is designed well enough that it's easy to gently blow out particles and carefully clean the top and bottom scan heads. Scanning to searchable PDF works incredibly well. The OCR module does a pretty admirable job of scanning text and making it searchable in a PDF. Pro tip: if you're on Windows and you want to use Windows Search to look for text in PDF you need to go download Adobe's PDF iFilter app and install it on every computer that needs to search the PDFs, not just the server or workstation where the PDFs reside. Software installation is clumsy and requires a bunch of updates. The ONE THING this scanner needs to do right is to scan to searchable PDF. In order to do this, I had to turn off all the "quick button" features and change the app to scan to application: save to a folder. I demo'd it before some scanning/archiving company tried to bid us $10,000 to do our scanning work for us and their demo system did far worse than this little scanner."
"I have used at least 5 different scanners trying to find one that would handle years of old paperwork. I have thousands of tiny fuel receipts on crumpled carbon paper that no scanner would scan without jamming."
"It's super fast and it's made my life easier by improving my productivity both at our office and at home."
Best Slide & Negative Scanners
Video Out for TV Connection (Cable Included); Mac & PC Compatible.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Having read a bunch of online resourced about various film scanning solutions I knew I had a few options. Dedicated film scanners would be great, but expensive for a good one, and still very tedious. So I looked around at some cheap consumer film scanners and decided to give this one a shot. I had the rolls developed and scanned on Noritsu scanners by a professional lab. I included a photoshop aligned image showing just how much cropping is going on. - Screen is total crap. Viewing angles are so bad just sitting in front of it puts you high enough to wash it out. Low res, bad colors, don't bother trying to eyeball exposure or color on this. - Interface is clunky, you can easily get the hang of it, but it's just not all that great. - Build quality feels really cheap. - Tried running Super 8 through it, way too much of a pixelated mess to really make out what it was, not worth it. Running negatives through this machine is pretty easy. The screen refresh rate is decent so you just line up the image, flip or reverse as needed, and then scan. The scanner is actively trying to cancel out the orange mask so color and exposure can vary just by moving the negative strip back and forth. Hitting the auto fix button in most programs will do a wildly better color correction job than this cheapo scanner could ever dream up. On a positive note, black and white negatives look great, no color to screw around with. It will never be perfect however because of a complete lack of Digital ICE or similar infrared technology seen in many high end film scanners and flatbeds. With some quick editing on the computer, you can totally make a usable image for basic sharing."
"If you are the sort who has a large collection of slides and wants to know the breakeven point between the cost of having a service scan your media or do it yourself, the average price for an outside service is in the 22-25 cent range per slide. If you need to scan over 500 slides this becomes the best value (assuming that the value of your time is not factored into the equation.). That is for slides - I did not check the cost of the other media this device will scan. At 14MP you can scan a little over 6500 slides, and at 22MP about 4100."
"The flat bed scanner can scan 12 frames at once without truncation and without having to line up each frame, and the resulting image color is accurate (without even having to mess around with color settings)."