Technical Difficulties

I have been scanning my sketches on my Brother all-in-one inkjet printer. The printer itself is the most aggravating printer I have ever had, mostly because it eats ink at a rate surpassing any previous inkjet printer I have purchased. It is only a year old, I rarely print and usually in grayscale, but it has had four changes of ink cartridges in that time. I am looking into alternatives. It has been unplugged to prevent the frequent (and creepy) habit of starting itself up and running cleaning/diagnostic procedures.

To replace the scanning function of the unplugged printer, I tried to resurrect an old stand alone scanner that I bought about twelve years ago. At that time, I was running Windows XP on my personal computer. I had some difficulty getting the Canon software to work on my Windows 7 computer, but with the current Windows 10 (one year new) computer the software would not communicate. Enter VueScan software, which is designed to make old scanners run on new computers. Shazzam! (does anyone say that anymore?) The scanner makes some moaning noises, so I don't know how long it will work, but it scanned easily from the get go. VueScan is available as a free trial, but to get rid of the large watermark I had to pay $19.99. Still cheaper than a new scanner.

Scanned with Brother MFC-J480DW at 600dpi

Here are scans of a leaf sketch from first the Brother MFC-J480DW printer, scanned at 600dpi and resized with Paint.

Leaves scanned with CanoScan LiDE 600f
600dpi

Then the same sketch scanned with my CanoScan LiDE 600F, scanned at 600dpi and resized with Paint. I like the latter scan much better! The colors and contrast seem much better to me. Maybe I could get a comparable scan from the printer if I played with the contrast settings, but why bother? I am happy with the improvement. And the scanner powers from my computer's USB port, so I don't have to walk over to the printer every time I want to scan another sketch. I feel like I have reconnected with an old friend. 

The leaves were collected from the street during a walk. They are a reminder of my Michigan roots. The fall colors of the Beech/Maple hardwood forest that I spent most of my life in are unbearably beautiful, but a few trees here in SoCal have good color, if you wait long enough. I don't know what tree the bottom leaf fell from, [Update 02/15/2020 I found the same leaves under a Bradford Pear that is now in bloom. Top leaf is Liquid Amber] although I spotted a half green shrub in a yard nearby. I used my Faber-Castell Albrecht Durer watercolor pencils, activated with water after coloring.