How to Do Everything With Your Scanner- P12 ppsx

Most scanners today have multiple resolution settings for scanning different media such as text or photos. Check the instructions for your scanner to adjust the scan settings. How to Change the Resolution Settings on Your Monitor You can actually easily change the resolution settings on your monitor using the Windows Display Properties dialog box. To adjust the resolution of your monitor follow these steps: 1. From the Windows Start menu, go to Settings and then Control Panel. The Control Panel window appears on your desktop. 2. Double-click the Display icon to open it. The dialog box shown in Figure 2-10 appears. 3. Click the Settings tab to display the options shown in Figure 2-11, which allow you to set the color depth and monitor resolution higher or lower. 4. Be sure to click OK after you’ve adjusted the settings. A dialog box prompts you to view the new resolution settings prior to confirming them. FIGURE 2-10 Select the Display icon from the Control Panel window. Click the Display icon CHAPTER 2: How Scanning Technology Works 39 2 Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. FIGURE 2-11 Use the slider control in the dialog box to adjust monitor resolution. Matching Scanner and Printer Specifications Your first impulse might be to match the resolution specifications of your printer and scanner. After all, if your scanner captures 600 ppi, wouldn’t it seem that a 600-dpi printer should be able to do a great job with it? This isn’t necessarily the case. Generally, aim to scan an image at a higher resolution than your output device. For example, if you have a 600-dpi printer, scanning at 800 ppi is probably your best bet. Scanning at 1,200 ppi might also be a good tactic. Extra pixels capture added detail, enabling you to apply effects with more precision, and maximizing printer output quality; however, if your image is destined for a specific purpose, such as offset printing or Web use, be sure to reduce the resolution to the necessary size as a final step. Downsides of scanning at higher resolutions are that the scan takes longer to com- plete, and creates larger image files that take up more space on your hard drive. More importantly, scanning at too high a resolution can cause your printer software to crash. Since there is not a one-to-one ratio between your scanner’s ppi setting and the printer’s dpi setting, the printer does not place dots on the page in the same ratios and proportions as the scanner records them. The printer takes the dpi data from your scanner, and employs an entirely different mathematical algorithm to decide how Use slider control to change monitor resolution 40 How to Do Everything with Your Scanner Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. densely to place the dots on the paper to arrive at its own dpi. Extremely high image- scanning relative to printer capability can put a real burden on the software that was never designed to handle such a disproportionate conversion. Different Originals Require Different Scan Techniques Not all originals are created equal when it comes to scanning. The type of original media you’re scanning is a big factor in determining the optimum resolution settings for your scanner. Original scanned images and media fall into five basic categories, each of which calls for a distinct scanning technique: Color photos Reproducing color photos presents the special challenge of capturing color accurately, and without a red, green, or blue cast. This process, called calibration, is covered in detail in Chapter 6. Color scans require a bit depth of 24 or greater. Grayscale These images are black-and-white representations, and do not require as high a bit depth as color scans. Loss of detail from scans that are too light or too dark is a common problem encountered when working with grayscale. Proper calibration, as discussed in Chapter 6, is a must when working with these images. Line art Line art is images with solid edges, usually line drawings. Examples of line art include logos, pencil drawings, black-and-white clip art, and other simple graphics. Since line art is in only two colors (black and white), the main focus when scanning line art is reproducing the edges or lines of the image to be as faithful as possible to the original. Resolution requirements for line art are generally higher than for color and grayscale media. Transparency (including film) A transparency is an image that exists on film. When you scan a transparency, light is captured as it passes through the film. With other types of media, light is reflected off the surface of the image. As with grayscale images, scanners must be carefully calibrated to avoid reproductions that are too light or too dark. Color balance is also an issue, since transparencies are prone to greenish and yellowish casts. You can learn more about scanning film and transparencies in Chapter 12. Text Scanning text documents is similar to scanning line art, and requires high- resolution capability to preserve the sharpness and readability of the original. You also need to install special optical character recognition (OCR) software. Text scanning is discussed in Chapter 13. CHAPTER 2: How Scanning Technology Works 41 2 Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. Software to Optimize Your Scan Your scanner and other hardware devices are only half the equation in creating a good scan. The scanner software that directs and calibrates your scanner, and the image- editing program tools you apply after scanning, also control the finished scanning product. Types of Scanner Software Most scanners come with several different types of software. Generally, the better the quality of your scanner, the better the software that comes along with it. The following software is usually bundled with a new scanner: Drivers This is the basic software required to run your scanner device, enabling it to communicate with your computer. You don’t need to do any comparison shopping on this particular software, other than checking that the scanner you want to purchase is compatible with your computer’s operating system software (for example, whatever version of Windows you’re using.) Scanner program This is the program that interfaces with your scanner driver, enabling you to view and store the recorded information, or in some cases, apply editing changes to the newly-scanned image before committing to saving the resulting scan. Not all scanner programs are created equal. Compare them on the basis of the tools they provide, such as cutting, cropping, brightness, contrast, and sharpening. It is particularly useful if your scanner provides you a sophisticated color adjustment tool called a histogram, which is discussed in Chapter 10. Imaging or photo-editing software Today most scanners come with image- editing software that not only allows you to correct flaws in scanned images, but also to do many fun and creative projects. Image-editing software enables you to do things after the scan such as combining images from different photos into one; adding special effects; applying filters and colorizing techniques; adding frames, borders, and props to photos; and creating greeting cards and novelty items. Optical character recognition (OCR) software This is a task-specific type of software that gives your scanner the ability to read documents and text, and create a text file on your computer. 42 How to Do Everything with Your Scanner Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. This book covers steps specific to the software programs most commonly bundled with today’s scanners; however, you can do most projects covered using a wide variety of image-editing or OCR programs on the market. It’s simply a matter of checking the specific instructions for your particular software product, and referring to the figures and illustrations. The Important Role of Software During a Scan A basic principle of good scanning technique is that you perform most of your image adjustments and correction chores during the scanning process. Image-editing software allows you to correct and enhance photos for which the original was defective, but you might have to spend a lot of time correcting something your scanner software would have avoided in the first place. Most scanner software allows you to efficiently perform the following tasks during the scanning process: Cutting and cropping You can specify which portions of a photo you want to appear in the finished scan. For example, you can eliminate a stray passerby from the background, or crop a headshot of your subject. Controlling resolution Most scanners have several settings to vary the ppi (or dpi) of your scan. You might, for example, want to scan and save a photo to be sent over the Internet at a lower resolution than one you plan to publish in a magazine. (Scanning at higher resolutions creates much larger, more cumbersome files than images scanned at lower resolutions.) Color correction Color-correction tools, previously the exclusive domain of image-editing software, are now included with many scanners to allow you to correct for various factors as you scan. Become familiar with the image-correction tools your scanner offers. You save time and end up with a better-quality scanned image by performing as many image-editing and color-correction tasks as possible during the scan. CHAPTER 2: How Scanning Technology Works 43 2 Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. . decide how Use slider control to change monitor resolution 40 How to Do Everything with Your Scanner Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. densely to place. gives your scanner the ability to read documents and text, and create a text file on your computer. 42 How to Do Everything with Your Scanner Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to. enabling it to communicate with your computer. You don’t need to do any comparison shopping on this particular software, other than checking that the scanner you want to purchase is compatible with your