> now, i tried "scanimage -mode Color -b" but on a flatbed scanner that > scans the same image over and over. next i tried the same thing w/o > the -b, but that scans the entire bed. besides, xsane offers a slew of > options on bit depth, limiting the scan area, etc that i can't seem to > set with scanimage.
OK, there seems to be a misunderstanding here: the batch option in scanimage is meant for scanners that support automatic document feeding. I don't think this is the case with your $40 scanner. > i=0 > while true; do > itxt=$(printf "%03d" i) > echo enter picture description, enter . on it's own to end > [commands to read till ^\.$] > image$itxt.txt > scanimage --mode color --bits 16 --scan-distance 500 \ > --other-options-ala-xsane > image$itxt.pnm > [commands to crop image since all photos are the same and then > convert the image to a jpeg.] > i=$(expr $i + 1) > done Good idea, but I would only store the pictures inside the loop, you can crop and convert to jpg later. Clipping and conversion can be done with "convert" from ImageMagick. I use a slightly different loop when doing batch scans, but the result is much the same. Andras =========================================================================== Major Andras e-mail: and...@users.sourceforge.net www: http://andras.webhop.org/ ===========================================================================