So you been waiting to learn about how your software can improve or even create the bases after you scan. Well I'm going to touch upon the program that came with the scanner. Likely it is a program that lets the scanner see an image or text and put it into your computer. Usually the scanner will be bundled with either a limited version or the full version of an imaging or OCR program. The programs that come just for the scanner can sometimes be limiting in touching up and saving your images later.

The software that will control the scanner into scanning the images gives limited control over the final image. You can use this software inside an imaging program by importing a plug in from the scanners software and placing into the imaging software. The advantage of doing this is now you can activate the scanner from with in your imaging software. For demo I am using Photoshop 5.5. From the file menu you go to the Export submenu and look for your scanning start button. Either there will be a manual scan and an automatic scan which the scan is done automatically with all color and light changes made for you. The more accurate and most often used is the manual button.

Now your inside the scanning software and although each manufacture has there own program they all do roughly the same thing. At the top of the page in the Umax software version 1.0.8 you will see "Settings", "Mode", "Image" and "Info" These are set to a default upon installing the software for the first time. The "Settings" give you control over do you want a quality scan or not. Do you want a color preview. If you are using more than one scanner with this software which one do you want to use. This setting is the most important and that is how large do you want the scanner to move in preview, say the maximum and you likely wont be going into this area again. The mode translates to do you want your scan to be in:"color" or " lineart" or "halftone gray color" or "RGB color"(for web safe) or "CMYK color" (Paper and printing safe)or in"256" (colors safe for Mac and Win).The Image button is used for setting gamma,highlight shadows, flipping the image or inverse and adding filters. I recommend leaving in the factory mode and play with it later if your interested. However I like to use Photoshop to added to the image at a later date. The last button is Info which will tell you if it is SCSI what channel or model of scanner and if it is for color or not.

There are a few movable graphs further down that will allow for some fine tuning the scan. First you need to tell the scanner if you are using a reflective, transmissive hood attachment. Or if you will be using it for slides or ADF. Most smart software will know if the attachment is on the scanner and that part of the software active where the other is a dull gray.

Set your dpi (dots per inch) with arrange on most home scanners between 25 dpi to 9600 dpi or your own custom setting. Just remember the higher the number the more ram memory you will need and the larger the image file will be. Also the lower the dpi can cause some images to look more out of focus.

Set your image size from 10 per cent to 400 percent or your own custom setting. If the above setting don't need altering don't. Let the scanner get the best scan which is often arrived from the factory default settings and let your imaging software like Photoshop fix things later if need be.

Last but not least is the bars for changing the whites in the image. How light do you want the image to show up on the final scan. Or the second bar allows for how dark the image will scan. Followed by a how bright and how much contrast or not do you want. My best advise is to go with the defaults

At the bottom of the page are three buttons. The first button is the preview. The preview does just that it scans the image plus more. This means that you can have several images on the scanner and they will all be scanned. The second button is the Scan button. After the preview you are able to capture the image that you want to be actually scanned by squaring it off in a square of marching ants. The scan will only scan in between those marching ants or where the marquee is. This saves on ram and captures on the image that you want. The last button is cancel which stops where ever and from whatever the scanner was doing.

If you have any questions about this project email us at info@waymorewebs.com