ACTIVITY: Using a flatbed scanner

Step by step:

1. Start the image program.
2. Select the 'File - Acquire' or 'File - Import' or 'File - Scanner' menu (sometimes there is a toolbox button).
   • You may need to SELECT SOURCE where you select your TWAIN driver if you have more than one driver installed.
   • Here is a look at a few samples of menus of various popular image programs (http://www.scantips.com/begin2.html) that shows the Acquire/Import menu used, and how to find it.
3. When the software starts up, press the Preview button for a quick overview scan of entire scanner bed. The Preview is a quick low-resolution scan that appears in the Preview Window. (See Scanner interface EXAMPLE)
4. Use the mouse to mark a rectangle on the image of the bed, describing the area you want to scan. You can mark the entire photo area, or crop the image to be scanned. The Scan button will then scan only the area that you have marked.
5. Select image mode ­ line art (for purely B/W images like line drawings or text), greyscale (for B/W tonal images such as photographs), RGB (3-channel colour, for images for screen use or desktop printing), CMYK (4-channel colour, for images to be used in commercial print jobs). The greater the colour depth, the larger the data size of the image. (See Image mode EXAMPLES)
6. Select the size (% scale) and resolution of the image - usually 75ppi for web, 300 ppi for print; 75ppi at 100% will give you a screen image approximately the same size as your original (see Image resolution issues).
   • It is the PIXEL measurement of the image that has most relevance to how it will appear on screen ­ check the software settings to change 'units' from cm or inches to pixels. A useful image size (approx. one quarter of browser window) is 200 ­ 300 pixels wide, depending on image orientation.
   • It is better to scan the image larger than your final requirement, rather than smaller, as enlarging a small image will significantly degrade image quality.
7. Press the Scan to scan your selected image area - the image will automatically appear back in the original image program. You have now "acquired" an image.
• The image can then be manipulated in the image editing application (see Image manipulation), or the controls can be adjusted in the scanning software and the scan redone if the image is not satisfactory. Generally the functions available in the image editing application are more flexible and allow a greater degree of control.
8. Save the final image to disk, using the FILE - SAVE AS menu to specify a file format like TIF or JPG, and a file name. It is advisable to initially save your image in a 'lossless' format such as TIFF (see Image compression and file formats), and reprocess it for web use.