Path: menudo.uh.edu!usenet From: sh@hplb.hpl.hp.com (Stephen Harvey and Esa Haapaniemi) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews Subject: REVIEW: ADPro HP ScanJet IIc Driver Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.graphics Date: 22 Jun 1993 12:59:22 GMT Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett Lines: 304 Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator) Distribution: world Message-ID: <206vna$mrv@menudo.uh.edu> Reply-To: sh@hplb.hpl.hp.com NNTP-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu Keywords: scanning, graphics, commercial PRODUCT NAME ADPro HP ScanJet IIc Driver [MODERATOR'S NOTE: This is the first "joint" review I have received. I think it's great (and probably a lot of fun) if a few Amigans get together to review a product. Any volunteers? - Dan] BRIEF DESCRIPTION A driver program for scanning colour pictures with an HP ScanJet IIC scanner. Both standalone and ADPro (ASDG Art Department Professional) versions are included. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Name: ASDG Incorporated Address: 925 Stewart Street Madison, WI 53713 USA Telephone: (608) 273-6585 FAX: (608) 271-1988 Portal: go asdg BIX: join asdg CompuServe: go amigav (Section 2) GEnie: move 555;1 (Category 27) E-mail: pk-asdg@cup.portal.com LIST PRICE $200 (US) Available in Finland for 1500 smk. ($280). SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE Amiga with SCSI port, big hard disk and lots of memory. HP ScanJet IIc. Works with all 680x0 microprocessors. A faster CPU helps. SOFTWARE AmigaDOS 1.3 or higher. COPY PROTECTION None. (Just your conscience.) MACHINES USED FOR TESTING ADPro Version A3000/25 + 10 MB memory (2 MB Chip RAM) + 210 MB hard disk. Workbench 2.1, KickROM version, no 24-bit graphics. Stand Alone Version A1500, PP&S 68040 card, 11 MB memory (1 MB Chip RAM) GVP SeriesII HD8+ SCSI card with 110 MB hard disk. Workbench 1.3/2.1 PROGRAMS INCLUDED IN THE PACKAGE The driver for ADPro2.x (reviewed by Esa Haapaniemi) and the Scan_to_disk version (reviewed by Steve Harvey) of the scanner software. REVIEW OF THE ADPRO DRIVER I asked for ASDG support of this scanner almost 2 years ago. At the time, they promised it would appear quickly. First they said it was on a development list, then in beta-testing, then they needed to finish the Morph+ software first, then they were busy with the Morph+ demand (but it was supposedly already written?) and was again under beta-testing. Finally, a local professional Amiga equipment dealer had it on his lists, and we ordered it immediately. At the same time, we bought a new version of ADPro (2.3) because the dealer couldn't give any upgrade information for version 2.1. Installation was easily done with the standard Commodore Installer program. After connecting the scanner (always remember to power off all equipment when making connections!) we could immediately try the program. The ADPro driver needs ADPro running first. You must then choose the HP-SCAN loader; and after the LOAD command, the driver opens the same screen as the standalone version. There is a scan area on the left, scaled in inches, which may be toggled with a gadget to a metric scale. The scanner bed is viewed from below, so every object on the scanner is mirrored from right to left. On the right side of the screen, there is a typical ASDG button box window with requesters for scaling and setting the scanning area (inches/cm), toggle buttons for suggested resolutions, Metric/Imperial measuring system, scan/abort/cancel and accept buttons. There is also a button to reset the scan size to full bed. The numbers that represent the needed space (RAM/disk) are doubled (see below). Brightness may be set with a slider or by typing a number directly. The scan area includes a square, mouse-controlled "rubber-band" that allows selection of an area within the whole bed. When the full bed button is pressed, the square expands to cover the maximum scan size. If the area needed is smaller than the full bed, then this can be set with the rubber-band before redoing the preview scan. When "Scan" is pressed, the scanner sends the chosen area to to the computer quickly. If the chosen area is smaller than the full bed, the area is expanded so that the height or width almost fills the screen. The area can then be set more accurately, and you can continue with zooming or accepting the area. If the ABORT or CANCEL buttons are pressed, the driver returns back to ADPro. Pressing "Accept" changes the right box to Final Scan, and the rubber-band is locked, but you can still go back to Preview Scan if needed. In Final Scan, the resolution toggles stepwise between 50, 75, 100, 150, 200, 300, 400, 600 and 800 (wow!) DPI and back. If too high a resolution is chosen, the required memory meter numbers change from light gray to black. This is a little misleading, as the exact size of the file is only half of the numbers presented. This is done because ADPro needs twice the amount of memory to keep both original and edited graphics in memory at the same time. So if this meter shows that you need 6 MB of memory, the final image will only be 3M when stored on disk as a 24bit IFF file. Of course, the sizes for 24-bit, 8-bit, greyscale and 2-bit are also displayed. In Final Scan, there are also sliders for contrast and brightness, a toggle button for full colour/gray_scale/black & white scanning, and for filtering and gamma correction. I did not have much use for them and so I can not say much about them. The ABORT, CANCEL and ACCEPT buttons work like those in the Preview Scan screen. Pressing 'Accept' brings back the ADPro screen again, and the progress of the scanning is shown with a wiper like meter. The final scanning is really fast, and the 800 DPI gives good results. I did try to scan slides, but that requires a more powerful light behind the slide, as well as shutting down the scanner's own light. Also, 3D objects like pens, feathers, and clothing were scannable and the pictures usable for graphics. With 800 DPI, even the best art books seemed to have pictures made of spots and not painted directly... The scanned image was immediately usable in ADPro, and the results could be changed quite easily. If contrast or darkness was not correct, it could be corrected with ADPro or by scanning again (scanning is sometimes faster). Our lack of 24-bit graphics is a limitation, but maybe we can change the software and scanner over to a A4000/40 soon. Also as our A3000 is connected to ethernet, the output of 24-bit graphics to colour Postscript will be really easy. REVIEW OF THE SCAN_TO_DISK VERSION The standalone version is very similar to the ADPro driver. The scanning screen and controls are identical. The only difference is that after you press the ACCEPT gadget on the Final Scan screen, a file requester appears asking for the filename and directory you want the image saved in. Images are only saved in 24IFF format, so ideally you need a conversion program. I use HamLab+ which is a shareware product written by Ed Hanway, jeh@raster.kodak.com. (If anyones interested I might be persuaded to produce a review of that too.) The software uses a halfbrite screen mode to display a greyscale representation of the image you are scanning, but on AGA machines this will be an 8bit screen, which should help you set brightness more accurately, I haven't received my A4000/030 and so have been unable to try this... yet. The two buttons for filtering and gamma correction contain several options. The Gamma Correction can be None or NTSC, and the Filtering can be None, 4-Pixel, 2-Pixel or Auto. When Gamma Correction is set to NTSC, the scan is processed to compensate for the colour biasing on most monitors. The Filtering button decides the amount of smoothing that is used when the scan is scaled down. The best settings for these seem to be NTSC Gamma Correction and Auto Filtering. DOCUMENTATION The disk comes with one manual that covers installation, how to use the software, trouble shooting, etc. It explains the functions of all the gadgets, buttons, etc. in fairly good detail and explains all you need to know to use the software. I'm a beginner so I guess you don't need to be an expert to understand the documentation. All in all, it's an excellent manual to compliment a very good bit of software. LIKES AND DISLIKES I like the resolution and speed, but I dislike the ASDG way of presenting memory needs. Also I think the ASDG screens are not as professional looking as the program really is. - Esa Haapaniemi Overall I was very impressed with the package, but for the price I expected no less. The Scan_to_disk program has some irritating features. For instance if you try to write to a file already open the program quits. It would be much better if it just canceled the scan or gave a requester to retry or abort. This is a fairly important point, as without ADPro you need to use another program to check the quality of the scan results in colour, which means that the file might still be open when you next try scanning. The quality of the images produced is excellent; I have a few on tap if any one wants an example. The only other problem I've had with quality is that sometimes the scans can come out dark. Of course, this can be cured with the brightness/contrast control, but it's a shame that it's not automatic! - Steve Harvey COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS We don't have any other scanners or other software for Amigas, but the scanner was earlier used with Mac IIx and DeskScan software. On the Mac, the software seems more professional and the results are shown in colour immediately. Also DPI settings are unknown, and scanning resolution is set by a percentage of best (600 DPI ??) results. On the scanner bed window, the area can be set by starting the rubber-band from the desired point without the need to tune the preset area. Still the Amiga version is faster, and it can (memory/gigamem permitting) scan at higher resolutions, AND the files are readily transferable to other formats like GIF, IFF/ILBM, TIFF (if the saver is available). And of course I HATE Macintosh "multitasking". With the Mac version, it takes several seconds to get changed from scanning to file copying from the hard drive to HD/DD PC disks and back. - Esa Haapaniemi The only other software I've used with the ScanJet is the free PC driver that comes with the machine. The ASDG driver produces much better quality images and has a neater appearance. The only thing it loses on is that the PC software has a colour previewer. - Steve Harvey BUGS I don't know if this is a bug, but when I tried the ADPro driver the first time, the scanner screen was somewhat too low to use the rubber-band from the lowest corners. Also, if the resolution toggle was changed to something other than 50 DPI in preview mode or a preview scan was done multiple times (zoomed), the scanner jumped multiple times on the same line, and the driver just gave garbage out. During this, error scanning was really slow, and ABORT/CANCEL buttons were not functioning. A couple of days later, everything worked as it should, and no more quirks have happened to me. Maybe there had been some disturbing programs in the background at that time? One "annoying" part is in the previewer. When the selected area is zoomed, the numbers on scaling requesters show the place and size of the rubber-band, but they can not be expanded beyond the screen size. It would be much better to be able to set the position on multiple scans without having to go back to a fullbed scan first. - Esa Haapaniemi I didn't find any bugs in the Scan_to_disk version, but I did manage to crash it by scanning to RAM:. But I think that was my fault. - Steve Harvey VENDOR SUPPORT The electronic addresses listed initially are taken from the technical support section in the back of the manual, so support and assistance is available, although as yet I've not needed them. WARRANTY Unsure. I guess if you receive a faulty disk ASDG will replace it. CONCLUSIONS In my opinion, the product is really welcome on the Amiga. It's faster than the Mac version and allows greater resolutions. We could get the scanner connected to the Amiga permanently, but there are some users who need the Mac! - Esa Haapaniemi The Scan_to_disk software is excellent, as one would expect from ASDG. My challenge to ASDG on the improvement front is to change the preview scan to a colour one - even if it's supported only by AGA machines. -Steve Harvey COPYRIGHT NOTICE This review is in the Public Domain. Esa Haapaniemi Stephen Harvey University of Oulu University of the West England Department of Chemistry Engineering Department Finland Bristol BS16 1QY eha@phoenix.oulu.fi England or eha@zombie.oulu.fi Currently at Hewlett-Packard Labs, Bristol or esa@eokema.oulu.fi Email: sh@hplb.hpl.hp.com Direct Dial: ++ 44 272 228127 --- Daniel Barrett, Moderator, comp.sys.amiga.reviews Send reviews to: amiga-reviews-submissions@math.uh.edu Request information: amiga-reviews-requests@math.uh.edu Moderator mail: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu