Digital copies made easy: Scanners can do almost anything

Gadget News - Wednesday December 12, 2007

Digital copies made easy: Scanners can do almost anything

By Verena Wolff, dpa

Munich - Photos, slides, documents: even in a digital age, old paper treasures continue to clog countless folders and crates around the home and office.

One way to fight the clutter is to scan the analog versions and then manage them on the computer. Yet there are also factors to consider with paper documents to make sure that the original copies can be safely replaced in favour of digital copies.

"First of all, the hardware has to be able to image the thing you want to copy digitally," says Schahin Elahinja, a scanner expert for hardware maker Epson. Anyone looking to scan a negative or slide will need what is known as a shine-through unit to illuminate the object from above instead of below as is normally the case.

"If you want to copy large documents, the device requires a corresponding format as well," Elahinja says. Similarly, anyone looking to scan forms, cooking recipes and witnesses would be well served with a feeder unit.

The precise type of scanner and resolution are largely factors of the user and his or her needs.

"In many cases it's simply a matter of backing up and archiving digital documents," Elahinja says. "Two-hundred dots per inch (dpi) are enough for text," says Thorsten Neumann from Chip Online in Munich.

"More dots per inch make sense if you'll need to enlarge a detail," Elahinja says. "Two-hundred to 300 dpi are sufficient for one-to-one copies of documents."

Good hardware usually provides simple controls. "The buttons can usually be programmed with various functions, with scanning at the press of a button," Neumann says.

Epson calls this "One Touch Scan". "You just put the document on the scanner, and then the scanner adjusts and refines its scan to predefined formats like DIN A4, 10 x 15 centimetres or 35 millimetres."

Two things are important when making the connection: the scanner driver must be installed with the included software. "There are scanners that are integrated into the operating system - but it can happen that certain special functions are then not available," Epson expert Elahinja explains.

And every scanner comes with a CD containing programs to help scan properly. This includes options like where the document should be positioned and help for image processing functions like rotating, justifying, cutting, and retouching.

"Scanners can now provide processional results for photos even for users at home," says Barbara Wollny, a press spokeswoman for hardware maker HP. Adaptive lighting technology ensures that the contrast is better defined and that details in dark shadows are visible.

"Red-eye can also be corrected, washed out colours can be pumped up, and even dust motes and scratches can be airbrushed out," Wollny says.

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