Question Does a Graphics Card speed up photo or flatbed scanning?

[mr19th]

We scan photos and old documents using an Epson Expression 13000XL. Everything scans fine, but I was wondering if a graphics card would quicken the scanner speed. If not, what would quicken the scanner speed?

Example: I scanned a 4x5 negative at 4200dpi. I know this is very high and not normal, but it took 15 minutes. Would a video card speed this up? What would speed up the scanning? The computer has plenty of memory.

Here is some info on my computer, if it helps:
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-6500 CPU @ 3.20GHz 3.19 GHz
Installed RAM 16.0 GB (15.9 GB usable)
System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor

Thanks for any recommendations,
Sean

 

[USAFRet]

Unlikely a different GPU would speed things up.

This scan speed relies on the CPU and RAM.

 

[NedSmelly]

No it doesn't. (I scan 4x5" films with an Epson as well.) Scanning speed is determined by the USB interface speed and the transfer speed of the hard drive or SSD.

13000XL is USB2.0, so it's sucking data through a straw (approx 40-50 MB/s). At your resolution and 10-bit colour depth, you're talking a bitmap TIFF file several gigabytes in size.

Epson Scan is also very slow. You might want to try VueScan.

15 minutes for a 4x5" 4200dpi scan is actually very good. However these Epsons don't really have any resolution improvement above approx 2000dpi - so there's not much benefit above that.

Edit: From Filmscanner.info: "The Epson Expression 13000xl Pro provides an effective resolution of 2170 ppi at a nominal resolution of 2400 ppi." So you'll speed things up, with no effective quality loss, by scanning at 2400dpi.

 

[CountMike]

We scan photos and old documents using an Epson Expression 13000XL. Everything scans fine, but I was wondering if a graphics card would quicken the scanner speed. If not, what would quicken the scanner speed?

Example: I scanned a 4x5 negative at 4200dpi. I know this is very high and not normal, but it took 15 minutes. Would a video card speed this up? What would speed up the scanning? The computer has plenty of memory.

Here is some info on my computer, if it helps:
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-6500 CPU @ 3.20GHz 3.19 GHz
Installed RAM 16.0 GB (15.9 GB usable)
System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor

Thanks for any recommendations,
Sean

No, unless it's a very old and slow PC, it's all up to scanner itself and for same scanner, resolution of the scan and number of passes to achieve high resolution. Even slow interface is not a bottleneck for scanner's speed. Only way to speed up slow scanner is to limit head travel to size of scanned object so it doesn't waste time scanning empty surface. Most of SW can do that even automatically or it's built in scanner's firmware.
Graphic card only displays picture which is already in PC's RAM.

 

[mr19th]

No, unless it's a very old and slow PC, it's all up to scanner itself and for same scanner, resolution of the scan and number of passes to achieve high resolution. Even slow interface is not a bottleneck for scanner's speed. Only way to speed up slow scanner is to limit head travel to size of scanned object so it doesn't waste time scanning empty surface. Most of SW can do that even automatically or it's built in scanner's firmware.
Graphic card only displays picture which is already in PC's RAM.

That's what I thought, but figured I'd give it a shot to see if there was any way to speed it up without losing quality.

Thanks,
Sean

 

[mr19th]

No it doesn't. (I scan 4x5" films with an Epson as well.) Scanning speed is determined by the USB interface speed and the transfer speed of the hard drive or SSD.

13000XL is USB2.0, so it's sucking data through a straw (approx 40-50 MB/s). At your resolution and 10-bit colour depth, you're talking a bitmap TIFF file several gigabytes in size.

Epson Scan is also very slow. You might want to try VueScan.

15 minutes for a 4x5" 4200dpi scan is actually very good. However these Epsons don't really have any resolution improvement above approx 2000dpi - so there's not much benefit above that.

Edit: From Filmscanner.info: "The Epson Expression 13000xl Pro provides an effective resolution of 2170 ppi at a nominal resolution of 2400 ppi." So you'll speed things up, with no effective quality loss, by scanning at 2400dpi.

Thanks, I just wish there might be a way to speed it up without losing the quality of the scan.

Thanks,
Sean

 

[mr19th]

No it doesn't. (I scan 4x5" films with an Epson as well.) Scanning speed is determined by the USB interface speed and the transfer speed of the hard drive or SSD.

13000XL is USB2.0, so it's sucking data through a straw (approx 40-50 MB/s). At your resolution and 10-bit colour depth, you're talking a bitmap TIFF file several gigabytes in size.

Epson Scan is also very slow. You might want to try VueScan.

15 minutes for a 4x5" 4200dpi scan is actually very good. However these Epsons don't really have any resolution improvement above approx 2000dpi - so there's not much benefit above that.

Edit: From Filmscanner.info: "The Epson Expression 13000xl Pro provides an effective resolution of 2170 ppi at a nominal resolution of 2400 ppi." So you'll speed things up, with no effective quality loss, by scanning at 2400dpi.

Yeah, I figured. I tried VueScan a few times with different computers, but haven't really liked it that much. We'll see.

Thanks for your response,
Sean

 

[mr19th]

No it doesn't. (I scan 4x5" films with an Epson as well.) Scanning speed is determined by the USB interface speed and the transfer speed of the hard drive or SSD.

13000XL is USB2.0, so it's sucking data through a straw (approx 40-50 MB/s). At your resolution and 10-bit colour depth, you're talking a bitmap TIFF file several gigabytes in size.

Epson Scan is also very slow. You might want to try VueScan.

15 minutes for a 4x5" 4200dpi scan is actually very good. However these Epsons don't really have any resolution improvement above approx 2000dpi - so there's not much benefit above that.

Edit: From Filmscanner.info: "The Epson Expression 13000xl Pro provides an effective resolution of 2170 ppi at a nominal resolution of 2400 ppi." So you'll speed things up, with no effective quality loss, by scanning at 2400dpi.