MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Scanning Paperbacks with Yellow Background

DDHarriman · 01-27-2012, 05:59 PM

Hello kbaerwald

Before beginning to do anything, I would advise you to do some testing first (before choosing) - specially do not cut the books yet!

If you can, get a normal plain scanner (not the cut sheet you mention), and opening one of the books (press the spine down when scanning, you where cutting the pages anyway) scan 10 to 30 pages of it (2 pages each scan) using the internal Finereader Pro 11 scanning option. Settings - 300 dpi, grey.

Finereader will (if chosen to do so) split the two pages into individual ones (the ones it cannot do so, one can split manually afterwards) and deskew them (this one can do also afterwards).

Crop the pages of all the surrounding extra space (you can even get rid of page numbers, header and footers if you want) - try to have the crop window for every page to be the same size.

Export the file as images, one for each page, as a tiff black and white page..
The program will do an outstanding job into making clear back and white pages out of grey pages (or color ones), also it will number them sequentially.
If in the back and white pages you find some with black stuff (or marks), you can go back to Finereader, delete (clean/erase) those marks/stuff and save the page with the same name.

Get your PDF creating tool and build a PDF file from the sequential numbered TIFF files.
Open the result PDF in your eBook reader and check if the result suits you.

I can say, paperback books like you told and with the old/sun burned paper you described, let one make PDFs (the way described) that can be read easily in 6” eBook readers (bigger screens, even better!). And one does not have to care about OCR even! (faster that way). Also you are not destroying the pBooks in the process!

Best regards,

01-27-2012, 05:59 PM	#5
DDHarriman Guru Posts: 860 Karma: 4380 Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Almada, Portugal Device: Cybook Gen3, Sony PRS 505, Kindle DXG and Samsung Galaxy Note	Hello kbaerwald Before beginning to do anything, I would advise you to do some testing first (before choosing) - specially do not cut the books yet! If you can, get a normal plain scanner (not the cut sheet you mention), and opening one of the books (press the spine down when scanning, you where cutting the pages anyway) scan 10 to 30 pages of it (2 pages each scan) using the internal Finereader Pro 11 scanning option. Settings - 300 dpi, grey. Finereader will (if chosen to do so) split the two pages into individual ones (the ones it cannot do so, one can split manually afterwards) and deskew them (this one can do also afterwards). Crop the pages of all the surrounding extra space (you can even get rid of page numbers, header and footers if you want) - try to have the crop window for every page to be the same size. Export the file as images, one for each page, as a tiff black and white page.. The program will do an outstanding job into making clear back and white pages out of grey pages (or color ones), also it will number them sequentially. If in the back and white pages you find some with black stuff (or marks), you can go back to Finereader, delete (clean/erase) those marks/stuff and save the page with the same name. Get your PDF creating tool and build a PDF file from the sequential numbered TIFF files. Open the result PDF in your eBook reader and check if the result suits you. I can say, paperback books like you told and with the old/sun burned paper you described, let one make PDFs (the way described) that can be read easily in 6” eBook readers (bigger screens, even better!). And one does not have to care about OCR even! (faster that way). Also you are not destroying the pBooks in the process! Best regards, Last edited by DDHarriman; 01-27-2012 at 06:02 PM.