Anyone know if the Amazon book scanners are any good for mags?

[douglie007]

I was thinking of start scanning some of the books and mags I have.  I was thinking of trying one of the over head scanners from amazon but i dont know if they would be any better than my phone on a tripod. 

[Areala]

For scanning magazines, you cannot get any better than debinding the magazine and running it through an actual scanner. Book scanners of the type you're talking about merely take a photo of the pages. This can work (crudely) for books, because they're dealing almost entirely with text as opposed to finely-detailed artwork, and the gutter (the point where the two pages meet in the center) is always composed of white space. With magazines, this is exactly the opposite: magazines are printed full-bleed (ink all the way to the edges of the pages, including the gutter), and feature far more finely-detailed artwork than they do text.

If you want to do it for your own personal collection, a book scanner is a low-cost, minimal-effort solution. If you're wanting to do it for our site, the end result won't be high-quality, and we likely won't use them here. You'll want a good scanner with a document feeder; I'm sure some of the other members can recommend specific brands and models. I'm the only one here living in the stone age, scanning stuff by hand-placing it on the glass, and trust me, you have better things to do with your time.

*huggles*
Areala

[kitsunebi]

11 hours ago, douglie007 said:

I was thinking of start scanning some of the books and mags I have.  I was thinking of trying one of the over head scanners from amazon but i dont know if they would be any better than my phone on a tripod. 

Better than a phone or tripod, yes absolutely.

But as Areala said, the resulting scans will be of a lower quality than any scan found at this site, and would not be allowed to be shared here.  Every 6 months or so, someone announces they've ordered a book scanner and will soon get back to us with their results...and are never heard from again (though if you stand outside on a warm night you can detect the acrid smell of their disillusionment on the breeze.) So it depends upon your goal.  If you want to create a low quality but readable copy for your own personal use, a book scanner might be a solution.  If you want to share your scan with the world, the world would probably appreciate it if you bought a different scanner.