Monday 20 May 2013

Computer Users Improve Skill Base When They Learn How To Scan

By Carissa Glenn


It might sound strange in this age of high tech devices, but many people have never had the opportunity to learn how to scan. The following is aimed to provide some basic background to those who would like to know more and be able to help themselves around the scanner.

New users should begin by familiarizing themselves with their equipment. This might be a purpose bought scanning device that only scans but more popular these days are the units that combine printing, copying and scanning altogether. Sometimes called multifunctional or MFD devices, they are common in both modern offices and private homes. Not mentioned here is the less used hand held scanner variety.

The majority of modern devices come with good help yourself guides that take new users step-by-step through the scanning process. Usually these will be on the discs containing the device drivers but if not, search the internet and a tutorial or some self help guide will turn up.

Learning how to set up jobs correctly follows. Deciding what type of file configuration to use, what resolution to select and where to send the image once it is scanned is the next important task. The portable document format or PDF is one practical way of scanning documents. In this form it is very simple to attach documents to an email, print them or store them on a hard drive somewhere.

Generally a document can be easily read and printed from quite a low resolution, say around 150 DPI. Doing a lot of documents, at more than this tends to utilize excessive disc drive space and move slowly over LAN networks. The resolution of scans dictates the density, in terms of dots per square inch, of an image being rendered when printing. Those containing text and images may benefit from raising the DPI to 300.

Another use is scanning printed photographs. Here it is advisable to begin with a JPEG file format as these take less space and allow editing later. Named after the creators, the Joint Photographic Experts Group, the system involves compressing a complex color image file into manageable proportions. Higher resolutions may produce better images here, so begin at around 300 dpi and adjust up to 600 dpi for high quality results.

Remember that a lot depends on the quality of the original image. Poor quality originals will not improve by simply adjusting resolution. Also note that the larger the resolution of an image, the more memory and processing power is required to manipulate it and less powerful computers may struggle.

Giving each image scan an individual name is important and the last bit of advice in this introduction. Saving each image or document with its own unique name will make them easily identifiable. Not doing this may result in the system, especially multifunctional devices, allocating their own random file names. This can be very frustrating because each file needs to opened to determine its contents.

This advice is aimed to get new users up and running with their scanners and capable of performing the basics. Making the effort to learn how to scan correctly creates a platform from which improved technique and information about additional formats can be acquired.




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