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I have a dual-op system in which I chiefly use Linux Mint 19.1 64bit cinnamon.

I need to copy pages of sheet music that are a bit aged. For this purpose, scanner software that will resolve for printing the fine lines of a musical staff, the notes and other markings is necessary. I can do this successfully in Windows 7 using the software provided with my Canon LIDE 120 scanner, but I would like equally capable software to use in my Linux OS. I have tried XSANE but found the resolution poor in the printed result. Staff lines have gaps or in other places seem overly dark and many notations are hard to read. I have read XSANE's documentation but believe it was written for technical specialists to read. I am using the "lineart" setting rather than the "color" or "grayscale". I wish to fill an 8.5" x 11.0" page. Would someone please recommend software for performing this task that does not require a year at MIT to use?

Try VueScan

Lanser

Obvious question but it needs to be asked. Have you tried higher resolution scanning?

My question obviously contains the answer to yours, but I appreciate your answer. For the Windows 7 software, I had no problem with the documentation. For the Linux XSane, I could not understand the documentation to do more than choose 300 for res and lineart. They gave me poor results.

I agree with you - the SANE documentation is terrible.
I work with VueScan...
Lineart could mean a pure black-and-white conversion (also called bitmap).
Try a scan with grayscales 300 dpi or 600 dpi.
Adjust exposure and contrast either in the respective scan program or afterwards in an image processing like GIMP.

Lanser: I could not get the software for Vuescan to install from the software manager. Further, I found that the non-commercial version leaves a watermark for Hamrick on the printed result. For that reason, I did not bother to go to the developer's website.

Alvin wrote: ⤴Thu Sep 19, 2019 1:53 pm My question obviously contains the answer to yours, but I appreciate your answer.

Nothing obvious about it since you didn't mention the resolution you used. I have never looked at or used Xsane but when I opened it I got this panel where the resolution setting is clearly the seventh line down. Does that panel not open for you?

cliffcoggin: I found just what you depicted and described; only when I previewed the image it was immense. Maybe I did not preview it correctly or made some other error.

In any case, I have launched "simplescan" from software manager and find it simple indeed. It produced just the image I needed. Thanks for going to the trouble to assist me! The generosity of LMF tutors is extraordinary!

Simplescan is all I have needed so far. I think I installed Xsane in my early attempts to get scanning operable, before I discovered I needed a higher version of HPLIP than was provided by the repository.

Simplescan is simple. I understand you liking it. I use Simplescan for most scans.

Xsane gave you more options in a less useful user interface back when I tested Xsane in 2017: https://petermoulding.com/vuescan_on_linux

I found the Xsane settings display in GIMP was better than the Xsane display in Xsane and more reliable.

The main reason I tried to use Xsane instead of the working Simplescan was resolution. The Simplescan resolution list did not include the highest resolution available from my scanner. Unfortunately the higher resolution option in Xsane made Xsane explode.

There are also differences between the software packages when your scanner has features like film scanning. The Vuescan Pro edition also has OCR and the total Vuescan pro package price is less than the cost of some OCR packages.