Epson scanners on Linux systems

I’ve got a Epson Perfection 1260 Photo scanner.

Fedora like other distributions such as OpenSuse are recognizing the device since a long long time. The back end chosen for the device is plustek.

Unfortunately when using the default configuration one experience very strange effects with colours. The left and the right 50% of the picture have a colored background, even when scanning a empty page.

I had this problem with OpenSUSE since years and still got it with Fedora 1x. Since I only need the scanner for my yearly income tax declaration, I always forget about what I needed to change.

That’s what is needed to change:

Solution

[root@bond ~]# diff /etc/sane.d/plustek.conf.orig /etc/sane.d/plustek.conf
100c100
< option altCalibration 0
---
> option altCalibration 1
[root@bond ~]# 

Since I do not have any other scanners I do not know if this is a bug specifically to this type of scanners, or if it is a general bug.

Using different search engines, the web does not disclose some solutions. That is one of the reasons why I’m blogging about it. The other reason is to find other people with the same problem.

At the end of the day, I’ll try to find out if this is a general bug of the Sane back end, or just specific to some Epson scanners. If it is specific to some Epson scanners, it may be worth to create a new specific back end for those scanners affected.

Having fun? Now I have, my stuff is successfully scanned.