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computer for scanning

dseelig

Member
Okay I have a ton of slides to scan. My music agency died and no new agency will scan. I have a nikon coolscan 5000 with a stack loader. I want to dedicate one computer to scanning these slides. It will be a mac either an imac or ibook either with an intel chip . I am thinking of getting a refub from apple. I have a mac pro for my main computer and want to have that avaible for my printing and day to day work. I have a macbookpro which I need for my every day to day work so which would be a better computer for the scanner a late model ibook or a late imac. PS I will be writing these scans to an external HD David
 
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Mark K

New member
A very similar condition here. I have tons of slides and negative to scan and my scanner is Minolta 5400. I have noticed that the resultant tiff image per scan is 200 Mb so the main concern for me is a dedicated computer with tons of harddisk
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
Most scanners have a relatively slow interface, so you do not need a lot of processing horsepower. Your 5000 is FW400 I believe? Thus, even an older MacPro, like a dual 2.66, would be more than adequate as a dedicated station. A relatively good video card and decent monitor and profile will help with the color tweaks. I would bet you can find a good used dual 2.66 for around $1200.

The other advantage is you could also use this box as your image server. It has GigLan onboard, so load it up with SATA drives -- it will take 4 drives native -- scan directly to the drives, and simply network the box via a simple net hub.
 
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