so...question regarding monochrome laser printer as an option..

[Grasswire2]

(because I have terrible experiences with color inkjet scanner-printers)

I need to at least be able to scan in color to an sd card and ultimately use the image in color on the internet.

I realize that a monochrome printer-scanner will only print in B&W.

But will it scan in color to the SD card? And/or directly to computer?

Thanks in advance.

[OnDoutside]

1. One piece of advice when choosing a printer scanner is to make sure

You can scan once and take multiple photos without having to scan each time. What I mean is if you put say 4 photos on a scanner at the same time, it would save lots of time if you can copy from the one scan, without rescanning four times. I have a HP Envy 5030, and I've discovered this problem.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

4. Take multiple photos? A scanner doesn't take photos, it scans photos you already took

You scan one time, then you have a file on your hard drive (or usb drive).

You can then make as many copies of that file as you want.

[OnDoutside]

6. Lol, no. Unless you have have very large size photos, you can

usually place two, three or four on the scanner glass at the one time, with a high resolution. I'm currently working through my mother in law's collection (some amazing old photos in there) so my in laws all have a copy. There's a setting to keep the same resolution on each photo that's on the scanner glass, so I'm getting 3 to 4mb a pic, but it would be much faster if the scanner software could select the individual photos from the one scan ( it's in the machine's memory anyway), rather than having to click scan a second, third or fourth time. I had a printer scanner previously that could do that.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

7. So you want to be able to put, say, 4 separate pics on the glass, and the scanner just recognizes

that it's really 4 separate pics, and magically turns it into 4 separate files for you, instead of 1 large file with 4 photos in it?

That would be a cool feature, didn't know there were scanners that did that.

I still don't understand what pressing the scan button 4 times does to work around the lack of that feature, don't you just get four of the exact same large files w/all 4 photos in them? How does that 'help'?

[OnDoutside]

8. Yes, I used to have that feature on a previous printer/scanner a decade ago...I think it was a Canon

Pixma. Actually it was able to make a good attempt at identifying multiple photos on the scanner glass at the same time.

So you would scan once, the machine would hold that one scan in memory and through the Edit function you could extract each photo from the one scan, which makes the whole scanning process so much faster.

For example, I have 5 of varying sizes on the scanner glass right now, and I have scanned the glass at 600 dpi, but each time i have to press Scan, it takes about 45 seconds to do the scan, so that 5 x 45 seconds, plus the Edit time. I have the best part of 1000 photos to scan, so it adds up, and that's the bit i miss.

If i increased the dpi to the max of 1200, it would obviously be a whole lot worse.

[Susan Calvin]

2. I believe all scanners scan in color.

Based on my experience, you might consider a Brother color laser. I have an all-in-one that's served me well for years, and you can get generic cartridges for it. And you don't have to remember to use it from time to time whether you need to or not, like you do an inkjet. I have killed some inkjets simply through not using them.

[IbogaProject]

3. Laser printer for B&W and separate printer

Best to use two objects, use a scanner to scan or a combination color printer scanner, be aware that inkjet printers clog if not used once or twice per month.

For basic black and white printing a laser printer like a brother is the best value. A bonus is that they run out gradually rather than abruptly announce the ink is empty according to a chip rather than just letting you try and squeeze another job out.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

5. I don't think I've ever seen a B&W scanner ... other than like a fax machine.

Even a B&W printer, if it has a scanner, it will be a color scanner.