Scanners for Not Yet Techies

Scanners are terrific pieces of hardware that allow you to capture images from paper, photographs, photographic negatives and even (soft!) cloth such as t-shirts. Scanners can now use OCR / Optical Character Recognition to translate the images of alphabet letters and numbers into word processing programs. This enables you to scan a page of text you typed, for example, then import it to MS Word so you can make changes or just store the file without having to retype it. A life saver for writers who still have typed manuscripts.

You can buy scanners that are hand-held, feed-in and flatbed. You use an SCSI / Small Computer System Interface program to attach one to your computer. They've gotten much cheaper than they were.

You can get scanners that use the USB / Universal Serial Bus, a parallel port or FireWire. They all contain sensors -- an array of photosensitive cells, a motor, light, a brain and an interface.

The higher the dpi, the greater the quality of the image once it's translated to your computer screen. You also use the bit depth. Also, the color depth. 8 bits is the minimum -- that's 256 colors. That's enough for most web site graphics.

If you want to use scanners to capture images for professional publishing, you'll need at least 24 bits color depth.

One important thing to remember when working with scanners is to keep the glass clean. It will capture the image of dust and smudges just as easily the most beautiful photograph.

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