.. General Computing"

ThisIsn'tYourFathe(sScannerPutThisVersatileDeviceToWork ForYou

WOULD YOU LIKE AN INEXPENSIVE, yet

powerful tool that can transform yourdocuments, emails, and PowerPoint

slides int~ dynamic presentations?A tool that can help you organize,archive, and share decades of old pho-tographs? A tool that makes it easy tocreate personalized calendars, notecards, and business materials?

There's a good chance you alreadyown this valuable tool. It's a scanner,

_.. ""'B""~"'B~DB""-

:~:::;;,..~- "~IJ- I

,:;1!:Rl

Scannersoftware,suchasthisHPproduct,helpsyoumakeadjustmentstotheimageordocumentbeforeyouscan.

and today's scanners perform digitalmagic. With features such as colorcorrection, 35mm film scanning, andautomatic email attachment, a scanner

is a cornerstone of digital photog-raphy. We'll show you the basics tohelp you get the best quality images, aswell as tips on how to use your imagesfor a variety of creative applications.

GetYourBestScan

Before you scan anything, youheed to determine what you want to

34 September2004 / www.smartcomputing.com

do with your scanned image. Maybeyou'll be sending the scan as anemail attachment or you want tomake high-resolution color prints.Each of these applications requires

a different scan of the s~~e image.The reason is resolution. \

Let's take a minute to examine reso-

lution. One of the most usef~l waysto express resohltion of digital imagesis in pixels. Your computer monitor

..~-.- ,,"-~'. 0 o1.i'-;:-IffiI. --".

'"=-":::'0-"--.---..--"' ~

"'_..:-..-~_..,,;:..-:..-

:e~-/iI--.~-,,~--

WindowsMelXPincludeimage-scanningsoftware.

displays pixels and measures resolu-tion in ppi (pixels per inch). In con-trast, your inkjet printer prints imagesin dpi (dots per inch).

To print photographic quality out-put with your printer, you need aminimum of 200dpi. That's what theaverage person sees as reasonablequality in a picture. If you plan to takeyour final output to a commercial printhouse (perhaps for wedding invitationsor copies of a business plan), 300dpi iscommon. You can get away with lowerdpi if you're putting a picture into anem ail or PowerPoint presentation.

:]

Higher resolution also translatesinto larger file sizes. In fact, when youdouble the resolution, you quadrupleyour file size. If you scan an 8- x 10-inch photograph at 300dpi, you'll endup with a fairly hefty 10MB file. Scanthis same image at 600dpi and youhave a 40MB file. High-resolutionimages take up more space on yourhard drive and occupy more memorywhen you are viewing or working on

..0,;;.0'

" , " "-, ~,~~

~;:o ll~:~ I I~ ~ ~""""""..., . A_--a . .'~

r ' , ~Ir :',00> ~ I '_0-r"'""o."'"""-I jHP'~"'.4000S"'PCl'~

-""'" J

~A~I"~ [0 ~IMostscannersoftware letsyoumakecopiesfrom documents.

them, which could result in slow or

erratic performance.

WindowsImageAcquisition

Windows Me/XP include WIA

(Windows Image Acquisition), whichmakes it easy to scan images. All youneed is a WIA-enabled scanner with

a USB (Universal Serial Bus) connec-tion. You don't have as much control

over the image as you would withyour scanner's software, but this is the

--

. General Computing.

quick-and-dirty method. Afteryou make sure your scanner isconnected to your PC and all ofthe proper drivers are installed,place the image you want to scanface down on the scanner. Go to

Start, My Pictures, and clickPicture Tasks and Get PicturesFrom A Scanner Or Camera.Click Next when the Scanner AndCamera Wizard launches. Click

Preview. Click Custom Settingsto adjust brightness, contrast, andresolution. Click Next, type thename of the picture, select a fileformat from the drop-downmenu, and choose where youwant to save the file. Click Next.

ScanA Document

Let's assume that you find a great ar-ticle in a magazine or newspaper andwant to scan it. Remember that copy-right rules apply to most publishedworks. If you're not sure how you canuse a scanned image, check out theUnited States Copyright Office Web site(http://www.copyright.gov). Assumingyou can legally scan and use an image,there are a few tips you need to keep inmind. All printed images have beenprinted with screens, meaning the im-ages are made up of dots. If you scan itnormally, you'll end up making this dotpattern look even worse. This is whereyou want to use a descreen tool if yourscanner's software provides it.

You will find occasions to scan doc-

uments that contain images and text.Maybe your daughter's team wins animportant match, or your companypublishes a newsletter that features aproject you worked on. You have twooptions: You can save the 'combinedtext and graphics as an image file oryou can save the text andgraphics in a manner that letsyou use and edit the text in aword processing program.

If you save the article asan image file (JPEG [JointPhotographic Experts Group],GIF [Graphics Interchange

~"

\."\,

',-, " I)'

,,

'

,

'>!

,,',

"

,

""" ,-',,

J~, . /:C

, '

>-.~':

original image. Then, you can usean image enhancement programsuch as Microsoft Picture It!

($49.95;http://www.microsoft.com) or Adobe Photoshop ($649;http://www.adobe.com) to makeadjustments.

SpecialEffects& Beyond

Today's scanners offer a myr-iad of special features. The mir-ror option flips your image left toright (or visa versa). Invert colorsconverts white areas of an imageto black and black areas to white.

With color images, each color isconverted to its complementarycolor. As previously mentioned,you can also achieve these specialeffects after a straight scan with

other image manipulation programs.Nearly every new scanner offers thesesorts of options.

A home copier. If you have a homeoffice but no copy machine, don'tsweat it: There are two ways you canuse your scanner to make copies. Oneway is to scan a document and thenprint copies. This is a rather time-con-suming process, especially if you havemultiple pages. There's a good chanceyour scanner software has a copy func-tion. You can make additional adjust-ments such as reducing or enlargingthe image size, improving the qualityof the copy, lightening, and darkening.If your document has multiple pages, adocument feeder can help (not allscanners accept document feeders).The advantage is that you'll get theoutput you want without having filessaved on your hard drive.

Scanning 35mm slides. Mosteverybody has 35mm slides and neg-atives lying around. Even digital

camera users sometimes

revert to using a 35mmcamera on certain occa- .

sions. With a film adaptor(many scanners have thembuilt in), you can createdigital images and filesfrom images your 35mm

Hereisanexampleofapicturethatwescanneddirectlyontheflatbedscanner.

Format], or TIFF [T~gged Image FileFormat]), you will have a picture. Youcan print this picture, but you can'tchange the text or move graphics. Ifyou save the same article as editabletext with graphics, you will be ableto edit text and move graphics.Depending upon your scanner's soft-ware, you may be able to save theimage as an Adobe Acrobat, MicrosoftWord, or WordPad or other file

format that enables manipulation ofboth the images and the text. Yourscanner's software should offer op-tions for saving your scans in differentfile formats. Check your users manualfor details.

Adjust the dpi with your output andapplication in mind. Most scanner soft-ware also has controls to adjust con-trast, sharpness, and color. Unless youare trying to, achieve a special effect, usethe default or auto aajustment for eachof these settings. The goal is to create ascan that closely approximates your

Uses For Your Scan ggestea DU

Emailattachment 50 to 100dpi

PowerPointslide .100t0200dpi

For a document or calendar. . . . . . . . . . 200 to 300dpi

High-quality photo reproduction. . . . . 300 to 1,200dpi

,

!

camera originally captured. Thescanner automatically converts nega-tives into positive images. The 35mmadapter is usually built into the lid ofthe flatbed scanner. It often has its

own light source that illuminates thefilm as it scans. Insert your film,close the scanner lid, and begin yourscan. Epson offers a series of scan-ners called Perfection, HP has its

Scanjet series, and Canon manufac-tures a series of CanoScan film and

photo scanners, all with built-in35mm film strip adapters. Pricesrange from $79 to $599.

Email. We all use email. And youprobably enjoy sending pictures tofriends, family, and colleagues. Yourscanner software may have a featurethat both saves the scanned image asa file that is appropriate for email (asmall file size between 50KB and 150

KB) and automatically launches yourem ail program.

ScanningIn Action

The best part of scanning is thatthere is no limit to the things you cando. You've got pictures. Lots of them.You have slides, prints, and negatives,not to mention family heirlooms,Polaroids, and snapshots. Start scan-ning. As you save files, sort them intofolders for easy reference.

A great way to share your scannedimages is to create a calendar. Thereare a number of calendar-creation

programs available. Even if you justhave Microsoft Word, you can easilymake a calendar with your own pic-tures. To do so, go to File, New, andOther Documents. Select Calendar

Wizard. Select the style, direction,picture (make sure you leave roomfor a picture and date range). SelectInsert, Picture, and From File. Locate

your photo and insert it in thecalendar.

You can also insert scanned im-

ages in letters, marketing brochures,and business proposals. PersonalizePowerPoint presentations with scannedimages. At any slide, simply go to

Insert, Picture, and From File and find

your Image.

Fine-TuneYourScanning

Here are a few suggestions andideas that should improve your scan-ning techniques and get your creativejuices flowing.

Choose the correct image filetypes. When you create an image filefrom your scan, it will be saved in aspecific file format, such as JPEG,TIFF, or GIF. JPEG files producesmall file sizes that are great forem ail, Web pages, and small prints.JPEG files use lossy file compression,which means they tend to lose imagedetails. What's worse, every time youmanipulate and resave a JPEG file,you increase the loss.

TIFF files are lossless, meaning noinformation is lost. They create largerfile sizes, but TIFf is perhaps the bestfile format for high-quality scans thatyou want to use for prints.

You can also read and write GIFfiles numerous times without addi-

tionalloss in quality, as GIFs are loss-less. GIF is limited to 256 colors, so it's

best used for logos or pictures thatcontain fewer colors.

Clean the glass. To get the bestpossible scan, you want to have cleanglass. A speck of dust or a fingerprintcan make even the best scan look

ugly. Don't use a commercial glasscleaner because they contain abra-sives that can scratch the surface. Use

a professional quality lens cleaner ormake your own solution, but alwayscheck your users manual to see whatthe manufacturer recommends.

Apply the solution (combine onedrop of dish soap, 4 ounces of water,and a half ounce of rubbing alcohol)with a clean, lint-free cloth and

let it air dry. Omit the rubbing al-cohol if your scanner's glass has aprotective coating (again, check yourmanual).

Update scanner software. Check thescanner's manufacturer's Web site to

locate any driver or software updates

that may improve the performance ofyour scanner.

Use the correct image orientation.Place the image in its proper orienta-tion on the scanner's glass. You canlose detail when you rotate images inimage-editing programs.

Scan only what you need. If you onlyneed to use a small portion of an image,use the crop function to mark this areafor scanning. You'll save yourself someediting time and reduce the file size.

Scan images for the Web. MostWeb pages incorporate images that areeither JPEG or GIF files. Because Web

pages require small file sizes in orderto download quickly, your best bet isto create 100dpi JPEG or GIF files.

Create a collage. You can spendhours digitally manipulating an artis-tic collage of images. Or, you can cutand paste your images on a piece ofpaper and scan the result.

Scan 3D objects. Sure, it's calleda flatbed scanner, but that doesn't

mean you can't scan 3D objects.Remember when you copied yourhand on a copy machine? The lightfrom the scanner is designed toget the best image at the surface ofthe scanner (where the glass is). Buta flatbed scanner can create 3D-

looking images when you scan ob-jects. These include flowers, leaves,small tapestries, and, yes, your hand.Be careful, though; you don't want toput anything on the glass that couldscratch the surface and ruin future

scans. Consider placing a protectivelayer (such as clear plastic) on topof the glass, and leave the scannerlid open.

I Think I Scan

With the tips we've provided, youshould be able to get the most fromyour scanner. So delve into those boxesof slides, pictures, and newspaper clip-pings and start using your scanner toshowcase your accomplishments. II

BYBill EAGER