Bug 461359 - Option to scan in only black and white (not grayscale, only those two colors!)
Summary: Option to scan in only black and white (not grayscale, only those two colors!)
Status: CONFIRMED
Alias: None
Product: Skanpage
Classification: Applications
Component: general (other bugs)
Version First Reported In: unspecified
Platform: Debian testing Linux
: NOR wishlist
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Alexander Stippich
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2022-11-03 13:04 UTC by M G Berberich
Modified: 2025-08-24 11:49 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

See Also:
Latest Commit:
Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:


Attachments

Note You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.
Description M G Berberich 2022-11-03 13:04:46 UTC
I build skanpage from git, version is “skanpage 22.11.70”
( 22.11.70 is not in the version-list on bugs.kde.org)

The tools misses a option for creating black and white (2-color/monochrom) scans. This saves a lot of disk-space and is sufficient for most non-colored document. There are scanner that do not support monochrom output and sane has the policy to not add functionality in the backends, but leave this for frontends. So providing a monochrom option in skanpage is the  correct place.

In my example, I got for a 1-page A4 pdf:

skanpage grayscale: 9,1M
black-and-white converted: 232K

At first attempt a simple threshold at 50% would be O.K.
Comment 1 Mauro Molinari 2025-08-24 11:31:31 UTC
I would also be interested on this.
Background: upgraded to Kubuntu 24.04 from Kubuntu 20.04. Finally Skanpage is available. I like some of its features (for example the multi-selection support in a single pass), but I really miss the ability to scan in black-and-white, simulating a photocopy machine.
It seems like, in my case (I have a Canon CanoScan LiDE 110 scanner), this mode has been removed from the genesys SANE backend, so this mode (aka lineart mode) is now missing also from simple-scan and XSane!! :-(
Maybe this is the reason why it's missing from Skanpage too...
Comment 2 Mauro Molinari 2025-08-24 11:42:56 UTC
(In reply to Mauro Molinari from comment #1)
> It seems like, in my case (I have a Canon CanoScan LiDE 110 scanner), this
> mode has been removed from the genesys SANE backend, so this mode (aka
> lineart mode) is now missing also from simple-scan and XSane!! :-(

Well, after deeper tests, it seems like actually it seems like simple-scan actually still applies some filter (in software I guess) so that white pages backgrounds appear white (and not gray). It would be nice to have the same in Skanpage too, at least an an option or additional mode.
Comment 3 Mauro Molinari 2025-08-24 11:49:58 UTC
It seems like a similar effect can be obtained by pushing the contrast level high enough (around 30 in my case) in the scanner additional settings. Anyway, perhaps having a way to simplify this for dummies with an additional mode would be nice. Sorry for these multiple comments, Bugzilla here does not allow to edit or delete previous comments...