Greyscale Scans Very Faint

[ksnyder]

I am using a CanoScan LiDE 220 flatbed scanner with PDF-XChange Editor Version 5.5 (Build 312.1). If I use the greyscale setting, the scan is incredibly faint. I have to use color scanning to get something readable (or black and white, which never looks good). The problem is twofold - the color file is bigger and the color scanning uses a different, slower light setting on the scanner. The same scanner works great on Adobe Acrobat. Is there a setting I can adjust somewhere in PDF-XChange Editor to fix this problem?

[Tracker Supp-Stefan]

Hello ksnyder,

Welcome to our forums!

Thanks for this post and report. You are using a rather old build of the Editor. Can you please download and try the current latest - and let us know if you still get similar scanning results with it?
Please also try updating your scanner drivers if there are any newer versions on it's producer's website.

Regards,
Stefan

[ksnyder]

I just downloaded and installed the brand new version and it still scans 2-3 shades lighter than Adobe Acrobat for the exact same document. Is there any way to adjust it? The scanning is faint enough that it is a problem for me.

[Dimitar - Tracker Supp]

Hello ksnyder,

You can set different scan settings until you are satisfied by the result:

Also, you can choose the correct color profile under this menu:

I advise you to choose form the ones that your scanner software has added.

I hope this helps.


Regards.

[ksnyder]

I went through the settings and I have determined where the issue lies. Adobe Acrobat has an image compression scheme called "Adaptive" that darkens up greyscale text. If I use "Lossless" or "JPEG" in Adobe Acrobat then I get the same issue with faint scans. The compression options in PDF X-Change all yield identical results, except "Multi Raster Content," which helps a little, but not a lot. This is an unfortunate result for me, because if "Adaptive" is something proprietary to Adobe then I am going to have a hard time finding anything like it anywhere else.

[Ivan - Tracker Software]

Can you send us any PDF file that demonstrates the issue?