Fully Psyched

A conglomeration of things

A conglomeration of things

  • Original Content
    • Art / writing / everything
    • Postcards and letters
    • Collages and drawings
    • Writing
    • Sketchbook
    • Project index
  • Projects
    • Project index
    • Greetings from the Back of My Van
    • Star Wars Camping Adventures
    • Great Big Letter
    • Public comments on NPS DO-21
    • Interviews at the Charles M. Schulz Museum
    • Iowa Field Recordings, June 2010
    • View all projects
  • View all posts
  • Request a postcard
  • About

How to calibrate your Canoscan Scanner in six frustrating steps

July 26, 2012 by campbell 29 Comments

I’m traveling with a CanoScan LiDE 700F, and lately I’ve been scanning a lot of art for my Kickstarter project. It’s a nifty little device that suits my needs well enough — it’s not too big, and it runs off USB power. But every once in a while I start to see lines appear on my scans, and the resulting image files just look terrible. Here’s an example:

Throwing away your scanner is one option, but there are cheaper and more productive choices.

I’ve seen accounts of people who tossed their scanners because of this, but the problem can be solved by calibrating the scanner. Unfortunately, Canon buries the calibration feature deep within their not-so-great software, and the process of finding this feature is not at all intuitive. Nor does it appear to be documented.

I like helping my fellow human beings, so here’s a quick write-up of the six frustrating steps that I followed to calibrate my scanner (nine steps if you count downloading, installing, and opening the necessary software). This is for Mac OS X; Windows users, I feel your pain but you’re on your own here.

Before beginning, download and install Canon’s MP Explorer software. Here’s the link for other owners of CanoScan LiDE 700F scanners. If you have another model, Google your model name to find it on Canon’s website, then click the “Drivers & Software” link. Connect your scanner, install the software, and follow along at home.

1. Mouse over “Scan/Import” to reveal the necessary options.

Certainly this can't take very long.

2. Click the option to scan “Photos/Documents”.

Well, maybe it will take a little while.

3. Check the option to “Use the scanner driver”.

This is beginning to get ridiculous.

4. Performing the previous step causes the text in the green button to change from “Scan” to “Open the Scanner Driver”. Click the green button.

Oh, come on now.

5. We’re not there yet! Click the button that says “Preferences…”

This is insane.

6. Huzzah, we can finally calibrate the scanner. Click “Execute” next to the phrase “Platen Calibration”, which for some reason is followed by white space and then a lonely colon.

A pox on this interminable calibration process!

For best results, you might want to put a sheet of white paper on the scanner before calibrating.


POSTSCRIPT: Hey, now that you’ve read this far, go check out some of the cool stuff I made. Or, if you want, you can request a postcard.

Project updates!

Want to get updates on new projects posted here? Sign up below. I won't share your email address, and I won't spam your inbox with junk.

Make your mailbox fabulous

Be the envy of your friends. Request a postcard.

Latest sketchbook

A postcard collage of an old woman wearing sunglasses and saying "lentils lentils lentils lentils lentils"

Lentils lentils lentils lentils lentils lentils

Latest photo

A photo of the Grand Canon on a sunny day, with a tilt-shift effect applied in post-processing.

Some desktop-wallpaper-sized photos from my last trip to Grand Canyon.

Recent projects

Illustration of Jar Jar sitting in front of a gas station.

Star Wars Camping Adventures: Episode One

photo of Grand Canyon

Public comments on proposed revisions to NPS Director’s Order 21

Photograph of blue VW Vanagon in the desert, with the phrase Greetings from the Back of My Van overlaid above it

Greetings from the Back of My Van

Categories

  • Everything except sketchbook and photography
  • Art
    • Collage
    • Drawing
  • Correspondence
    • Letters
    • Postcards
  • Great Big Letter
  • Greetings from the Back of My Van
  • Projects
  • Technical
  • Writing
  • Sketchbook
  • Photography
  • Projects

    • Project index
    • Star Wars Camping Adventures
    • Public comments on NPS DO-21
    • Greetings from the Back of My Van
    • Great big letter
    • Interviews at the Charles M. Schulz Museum
    • Iowa Field Recordings, June 2010

    Absolute basics

    • About
    • Contact
    • Request a postcard

    Elsewhere

    • Someday I'll be on Instagram
    • Right now I'm on Facebook
    • In 2006 I was on Flickr

    Copyright © 2023 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in