How to change scanner settings

[jyeh74]

I have a Lexmark Pro205.
I typically scan word docs and pdfs and receipts to my computer. Typically, a 8 pages of scans of receipts and regular word docs is about 2mb
Today, I noticed the scan scanning VERY slow, almost crawling slow. It took a long time to scan 4 pages, and it was 8mb! Half the amount of what I normally scan and 4 times the size! I am not sure why all of a sudden the files are so big. Same type of files, just regular pages and receipts, nothing fancy. I am guessing it is slow scanning because of larger resolution, thus attributing to the massive size? I can't figure out how to get the setting back to normal scanning.

[Cornucopia]

You changed from B/W profile to Color? You changed the DPI? Compressed output to uncompressed? Lots of possible reasons. We wouldn't know and would just be wildly guessing, since you haven't given us any examples to compare (before, after)...

Scott

[jyeh74]

You changed from B/W profile to Color? You changed the DPI? Compressed output to uncompressed? Lots of possible reasons. We wouldn't know and would just be wildly guessing, since you haven't given us any examples to compare (before, after)...

Scott

DPI is on auto, like it always has been. b/w profile has not changed to color. Not sure about output but I do not recall changing anything.

[transporterfan]

Have you changed from say, jpg to tiff? There may be a hundred times the information between different file types.

[jyeh74]

Have you changed from say, jpg to tiff? There may be a hundred times the information between different file types.

No. The files are outputted to adobe pdf every time.

[TreeTops]

Where there photos in the documents you scanned?

[Cornucopia]

You changed from B/W profile to Color? You changed the DPI? Compressed output to uncompressed? Lots of possible reasons. We wouldn't know and would just be wildly guessing, since you haven't given us any examples to compare (before, after)...

Scott

DPI is on auto, like it always has been. b/w profile has not changed to color. Not sure about output but I do not recall changing anything.

Good grief, there's your problem. Auto lets the scanner decide the resolution based on what it thinks it sees (usually based on one of a few different profiles - line art/B&Wdoc/ColorDoc/Photo). If the type of material fools the scanner into thinking it is seeing a Photo vs. a B&W doc, you would have gone from say, 8bits x 200dpi to 24bits x 600dpi. Assuming that same example is scanning both docs at 3" x 4", you would have gone from a 468.75kB file to a 12656.25kB file. That's a growth of 27x!
And because of the change in dpi, it would also have run slower.

I N*E*V*E*R run my scanner in auto dpi or auto profile. Auto contrast/exposure maybe, sometimes, but that's it.
I can't think of a single good reason to use auto dpi / auto profile. You're directing this show, not the computer, right? So direct it!
If the reason auto is being used is that you don't understand photography & scanning, now is the time to learn and do it right. If you can't be bothered to learn it, that's just plain lazy and you are getting what (effort) you are putting into this.

Again, you still haven't given us SPECIFIC DETAILS, whether metadata or actual uploads.

Scott

[MaverickTse]

I also bet that the DPI has changed, automatically. It can happen if you are now scanning some receipts that have color logos.
Changing file output format will not cause a dramatic increase of processing time, but DPI can change a lot.

Effect on scan time (my experience):
DPI > Color/GreyScale/BW > TIFF/PDF > PNG/JPG