Is there a way to adjust contrast for Simple Scan?

Question

Simple Scan works very well for basic day to day scanning; however, my scans are a bit washed out. Am wondering if there's way to adjust the contrast?

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 11 '13 at 13:35

Simple Scan 3.8 has available in Saucy Salamander, introducing various refinements and long-awaited features.

Navigating now to Simple Scan-->Document-->Preferences, summons the Preferences dialog containing the newly-implemented Brightness and Contrast additions.

Simple Scan 3.8 settings for adjusting values for Brightness and Contrast

Moreover, adjusting values for Brightness and Contrast is to be hassle-free performed via a draggable pointer, useful to increase and decrease the values per-user's likeness.

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I fear this only works if your scanner supports it? – John Mee May 06 '19 at 07:25 — John Mee, May 06 '19 at 07:25

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 09 '12 at 21:21

2

Simple Scan is - by its name - simple.

There is this outstanding bug-report with a proposed pull-request.

However the main dev said:

I'm a little worried about how consistent drivers are with these settings, but I support the patch if it works. This setting will be "advanced" as most users will adjust the brightness/contrast after the scan is completed.

An alternative to Simple Scan is xsane from the software-center.

At first glance, it appears to be much more complex - however, its worth spending a small amount of time - it has great control over all aspects of scanning including contrast settings as shown.

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answered Jan 09 '12 at 21:21

fossfreedom

172,746

Thanks. One of my scanner's (Plustek OpticSlim M12 Plus) is really finicky and Xscane didn't render pages properly. Simple Scan works well, just wanted to be able to adjust contrast. – Kendor Jan 10 '12 at 03:22
both simple scan and xsane use the same sane backend. Strange that xsane doesnt work. There appears to be many front-ends - do any of them work for your particular scanner? http://www.sane-project.org/sane-frontends.html – fossfreedom Jan 10 '12 at 14:23
In fact XSane is still a useful application in Ubuntu... – Stefano Feb 27 '12 at 22:21

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered May 06 '19 at 08:02

Options I've found:

Use xsane instead of simple-scan :-(

Xsane lets you adjust the gamma, brightness, contrast during the initial scan.

Color calibrate your scanner

If you want to do it 'right' and, don't mind falling into time sinks, you want to import a 'color profile' for your scanner. For that you need an .icm or .icc type file which is some processed output from a scan of a perfectly printed 'color target'. In gnome 19.04 you'll find it under 'settings -> devices -> colour'. Good luck finding one of those things to put through your scanner.

Post-process your scans

imageMagick's convert program is very easy to use and will adjust various settings. There is a fair bit of trial-error to get the right result. eg:

convert -contrast input.pdf output.pdf
convert -auto-gamma input.pnm output.pnm
convert -brightness-contrst -25 input.jpg output.jpg

Is there a way to adjust contrast for Simple Scan?

3 Answers3