Scanning problem

[Rob]

I just got an HP 3500, as I heard it was better for scanning coins. However, I can't get it to look good. I have messed with the settings all weekend, but am not sure what I'm doing wrong. It looks like the light is too bright, so I get an orange streak in the pic, not to mention too much overall reflection. And the color is all off. The scan below is of a perfectly white coin. I want to sell some of my Washington quarters, which I handpicked for my collection because of their pure whiteness. But the scan isn't reflecting it.

 

Any suggestions?

 

1942 Washington Quarter

[carterhaines-migration]

I use a snapscan 1212 agfa scanner and have this problem too. I often get yellow/green streaks on lustrous areas of silver proofs and high grade silver coins. I do not think that this can be fixed by tweaking the settings on your scanner. When I encounter this problem, I do one of three things:

1. Leave it as it is and leave a disclaimer about it.

2. Take a picture with a camera

3. Edit the marks off.

 

If it were an important coin, I would edit the marks off, a task that is easily accomplished with Microsoft Paint. If you would like a sample of what picture editing can do to help you, post 1 or 2 pictures here that you want me to edit and I will post my edited versions of them.

[spiny]

The flames make it look faster!

 

I've heard that some people prop the coin up in it's holder and scan at a slight angle to help with this. I don't know if it works, though. I gave up on the scanner a long time ago and got a camera.

[Wihlborg]

Propping up one end of the coins holder to a slight angle does indeed make an almost unbelievable difference when scanning toned coins, but I find that when scanning a blast white coin the luster will still sometimes cause too much reflection making it difficult to get a detailed image. I have found that really lustrous blast white coins seem to be the hardest coins to get a decent image of.

 

As an example I have attached two scans of coins that were imaged after propping up one end of the holder. The first is a toned buffalo nickel. The scan has captured the true color and detail of the coin very well. The second is a blast white Antietam commem with outstanding cartwheel luster. Although the image is not too bad, the luster has caused numerous areas of the coin to look washed out. There is also a slight gold tint in the image that is absolutely unable to be seen on the coin in person. I have never been able to come up with an idea as to why this tint shows up when scanning a blast white coin.

 

John

[Wihlborg]

The white coin.

[Wihlborg]

Here are the same two coins, but when I scanned them I did not prop the end of the holder up. They look lifeless. The toned buffalo shows almost none of the color it has in person and the blast white Antietam looks dull gray. I believe this shows the dramatic difference scanning a coin at a slight angle makes.

 

John

[Wihlborg]

And the white coin.

[RotatedRainbows]

Try placing the slab in different spots on the scanner, like the upper right corner. I have a HP 7400 and have never had a problem with those type of colors, when I tried to scan proof coins I would get a pink or green tint but never streaked like yours.

[berylcoin-migration]

I have the same problem with the neon glare. In this thread on the other forum someone suggested that I change the exposure setting if I had such an option. As it turned out mine has no such adjustment, but apparently some do.

 

BC

[LucyBop]

I have never had this problem on either of my 2 epson scanners.

[ursabear-migration]

Rob,

 

Try placing the coin about halfway up the scanner's left side of the glass, at or near the edge. Prop up the coin slightly with a small piece of folded paper (no more than 1/4" on one end).

My scanner software allows me to drop the brightness and contrast in the scanning and previewing page, does yours?