Copy vs. Scan - Why does a copier have better quality than a scanner?

Question

I have noticed that on digitial copiers (either black/white or color) they can turn out good results when making a copy, but if you then take that same machine and scan your document in (such as in 300 dpi) the results are much degraded.

Does a digital copier use a different scanning technology for copies than when scanning to PC?

Answer 1

It's the dpi that's your problem. A scan can be a LOT better than what a copier can produce, but you have to have a good scanner. Copiers may also have "noise" removal technology which smooths fonts or cleans up and speckles on the paper that would show in a scan.

Basically a scan is going to be an accurate picture of your document. The higher the resolution of the scan, the better the picture will be.

A scan is almost always better than a 'copy' reproduction, because you'll have to deal with the printing technology of the copier. Just how good is it? But, like I said before, it'll depend on the quality of the scanner. You should scan a document at 600dpi if you want a good picture of it for later use.

Answer 2

A copy is always better qulity than a scan. It is the DPI that makes a copy look exactly like the original--it's a copy. A scan is a digital reproduction, not exact. To get the same quality the scan would have to have a higher DPI, then you have to mess with resizing a scan to get the same size as the original. Scanning is good for when you can't stuff a page into a copier.

Answer 3

yes different methods -

A fax / scanner converts what it scans into a picture i.e pixels and as a result the quality is reduced drastically.

A digital machine is able to create "pictures" but uses vector images, which are sharper and have better quality.