So, three months ago, I got a scanner.
And it gave me new sets of questions.

When I scan my pictures, the colors look different.
The oranges become red, the reds becoming pinker,
The pinks either get faded or super saturated,
The blues get turquoisey, and the purples look pale.

I had asked this on Reddit, but it got me thinking on
What are your methods in adjusting these colors
The same way as you see it in the picture

kora_viridian said:
I agree with what the people on Reddit said, as far as trying to turn off any post-processing the Canon software may be trying to do. That should get you something closer to what you expect. Also, if you're pulling the scans into Photoshop, GIMP, or equal anyway, those programs probably have better "mess with the colors" tools than what's built in to the scanner software.

One quickie test is to load one of the scans you made into Photoshop or GIMP and play with the "white balance" slider (or use the "auto white balance" button, if available). If there's a setting on that slider that makes the colors look a lot closer to what you actually see on the paper, then... use that setting! :D

Another quickie test, if you haven't done it this way already, is to try to create a scan directly from Photshop, GIMP, or equal. Usually it's something like "New > From Scanner/Camera". This sometimes will use the really basic driver for the scanner, and not put your image through the post-processing that the Canon software does. If the window you get to set up the scan (width, height, DPI, color/grey/mono) does not look like the one you see in the Canon software, then this is what's happening. See if the scan you get by doing that has different colors than what you get by going through the Canon software.

Calibration is tricky. To really do it right for a monitor, you use a small camera that looks like a mouse and goes right against your screen. You then run a piece of software that puts up (say) bright red on the screen, and then checks the camera to see which bright red it actually got. Then the software puts up medium red, checks the camera; dark red, checks the camera again, and then repeats for other colors. The end result of all this is a calibration curve or color profile you can use in Windows or your art software.

I am less familiar with calibrating a scanner; it should be able to do a little self-calibration, but this may not be 100% accurate. You can buy a pre-printed sheet with a bunch of color swatches accurately printed on it (the internets tell me that one name for this is an "IT8 target"), scan that, and then tweak the scanner's color profile until the scanned colors match the ones on the pre-printed sheet.

Using a camera on the monitor, and a reference sheet in the scanner, may not be a 100% requirement. I associate that with people who are doing graphics for national magazines or big companies. Ford wants to be sure the blue in their logo is exactly their blue every time, no matter if it's on a car brochure, in a magazine, or on a billboard. If your target is e621, FA, etc, then tweaking the sliders yourself until things "look right" is probably as close as you need to be.

👍🏽 I'm currently using the Curves tool on GIMP to color correct these. I ought to try the "Create from Scanner" right now. Thank you for this.