Copy scan quality on Canon IR ADV C5560i III

[bret@cos.flag.org]

I've been supporting a fleet of Canon IR ADV C5051 copiers for the past several years, and then some Canon IR ADV C5255. Now I'm also supporting a Canon IR ADV C5560i III and the scan quality compared to the older models is quite bad when it comes to scanning light grays like pencil.

Here is an example. This is a copy of some handwriting, which we copy/scan often.

pencil copy example.jpg

LEFT: Original pencil on paper.
2nd: Copy using one of their old Canon IR ADV C5051 models (about 8 years old)
3rd: Copy using one of their new Canon IR ADV C5560i III models (about 1 month old)
RIGHT: Copy using one of their new 5560i models with density increased and black color adjust turned up.

What I've already tried:
- Auto adjust gradation - Full
- Scanning from the glass as well as the ADF - same thing.
- Scanning to PDF and viewing on the computer - same thing.
- Settings on the new copier including Density, Background Density, Color Management - turning black up, Sharpness turning that down and up, and probably a few other things that didn't make any difference.

The above, especially the settings, made some difference, but the underlying problem is the quality of the scan - the original smooth pencil line is jagged and broken up, not smooth. So no matter what settings I apply, it's trying to correct a terrible original scan.

Note, making a copy of the Canon CA-8 TEST SHEET (11x17) shows that the color overall looks really good. All bright and vibrant colors look as they should.

This seems to be an issue with the lighter tones, maybe even specifically pencil.

The users note that this issue only happens when they scan or copy colored text with pencil notes. Black only documents with pencil notes scan generally fine (not as nice as the old copier, but passable).

I've definitely tried everything I know of and I'm wondering about this scanner in the new Canon IR ADV C5560i III - is it as good as the old one?

Anyone have any experience with this kind of an issue? or with this kind of scanner?

Thanks.
Bret

[MunsterTech]

hi,

i had a similar problem, one make sure you update the driver to the 55xx series, our guy who installed ours left the old driver on and was causing CQ issues, 2, the scan settings are weird, i think if i remember its default to PDF compact, could be wrong though, but in the scan settings, one customer had a cq issue, and had to change the dpi scan to a higher one and change it to a pdf not compact, bit of fiddling to get it to where the customer was happy as the size of the scan file varies

[mga]

Have you cleaned the optics

[bret@cos.flag.org]

Have you cleaned the optics

Good suggestion. Yes.

Scanning/copying other things, like my Canon CA-8 TEST SHEET show perfects scans with excellent quality and colors.

It seems to be something particular to this pencil scenario where I get this quality degrade.

[bret@cos.flag.org]

hi,

i had a similar problem, one make sure you update the driver to the 55xx series, our guy who installed ours left the old driver on and was causing CQ issues, 2, the scan settings are weird, i think if i remember its default to PDF compact, could be wrong though, but in the scan settings, one customer had a cq issue, and had to change the dpi scan to a higher one and change it to a pdf not compact, bit of fiddling to get it to where the customer was happy as the size of the scan file varies

Driver: well, they are scans, so the print driver doesn't affect what I'm doing.

PDF/PDF compact: Good suggestion, I didn't say that in my problem description, but yes I have it set to PDF, not PDF compact. And the issue is also visible in copies, not only scans.

DPI: I cranked the DPI up to 600x600 and that made a bit of difference, but it was just a higher resolution strange pattern on the pencil with the colored text.

It is interesting that it only happens when we have a document with colored text, such as blue, and there are pencil notes on that document. Unfortunately this is a common scenario for this office. If there is a document that is just black printed text, and there are pencil notes on that, then the pencil notes don't have the weird pattern shown in my original post photo.

[bret@cos.flag.org]

An update to this issue:

I found that using the setting called "Text" in the "Text / Photo" option makes all the difference in the world when scanning/copying pencil, especially when the printed text on that document is colored text.

I think that's the "resolution" to this issue is to use that setting.

It is a disappointment though, that with the new copier I have to set a specific setting, when on the old copier no special setting was necessary to get a good scan on the same documents.

In talking to other technicians who've worked on these machines, the concept is that this is a "better" scanner so it is picking up the shininess of the pencil and the copier is interpreting that as an image, and trying to give it texture or some such thing. Whereas the older scanner just saw gray and so printed gray. That's the best explanation we can come up with on this as we can't find anything "wrong" with this machine.

So with the "Text" setting set in "Text / Photo" I'm getting results comparable to the older copy machine, as in the photo in my original post.

[bret@cos.flag.org]

Here's another update to this issue. There is a print setting on the Canon IR ADV C5560i PostScript print driver in the Quality tab called Halftones.

That setting, set to Printer Default, will contribute to poor quality printing of halfones, including pencil and any solid line being jagged. It's a terrible default if you ask me.

I set the "Halftones" setting to "Resolution" rather than "Printer Default" and that made a big difference.

The pencil and other similar prints of scans now look good, not with jagged lines and the grays look darker as they are in real life.

Hope this helps someone.