It's Not That Hard
May 01 '01 (Updated May 03 '01)
The Bottom Line It's not too tough.
A month ago I had to give a presentation at work on how to use digital cameras and scanners. Since the presentation was only two hours, I had to try to give a basic understanding of the fundamentals and how they worked, and how the employees could use them. It was a bit challenging with the time restraints. However, everyone told me that I did an excellent job, and since I still hear about it once in a while and it's been over a month, I am assuming that I did. As a result, I thought that I might share the documentation that I wrote up for the presentation in case it helps anybody else.
*Key Terms:
1) Resolution
This is a display property (think tv, monitors, pictures, etc). A resolution is the number of vertical and horizontal lines being used to compose what you see. The size of the image is not a factor however in resolutions. The higher the resolution, the more accurate the image being displayed is reproduced. On the downside, it takes more work to produce that image and the file size is greater.
2) DPI
Dots Per Inch is much like resolution, but it generally pertains to prints. As it’s name says, it’s the number of dots per inch. You can think if DPI as the resolution limited by the size of the document (hence dots(resolution) per inch (size). And much like with resolution, the higher the dpi, the more accurate the print. However, the more work it takes to produce it and the larger the file.
3) Hard Drive
The hard drive is the device in your computer that stores data. Hard drives are measured in megabytes and gigabytes, where one gigabyte is approximately one-thousand megabytes. One megabyte is approximately one-thousand kilobytes. A floppy disk generally holds 1.44 megabytes. What does this have to do with scanners and digital cameras? Well digital images generally take up a lot of space and this should be taken to consideration when scanning and setting up your camera.
4) Flash Memory
Flash Memory is a stick or card of static (holds the charge) memory. Unlike the memory in your computer that isn’t permanent, flash memory doesn’t lose the information stored in it, thus working similar to a hard drive. Flash memory is often used in small handheld electronic devices such as cameras.
5) OCR
OCR stands for Optical Character Recognition. This term is important for scanners, as it does exactly what the name says. It recognizes characters as letters instead of artwork or pictures. If you want to scan a document into the computer and want to manipulate text you have to use the scanner’s OCR feature.
6) JPG
This is a compression format generally used for image files. It has become one of the leading standards.
7) BMP
This is another standard for image files. However BMP’s use little to no compression, which means that the files size is generally very large. It is recommended that you work with the JPG standard whenever available.
*Overview:
Both scanners and cameras are devices that convert images and text from the outside world into data that you can manipulate in your computer. There are several phases or steps in doing this.
The first step is to collect the images (take pictures, find pictures or documents to scan). In this respect your digital camera works much like any other camera you have used before.
The second step is to convert said images and documents into the computer. To do this you have to hook your camera up to the computer, or use the scanner. Almost every scanner or camera has it’s own proprietary software to use this. So while the software may be different, the functions of the software are the same.
Once the data is in the computer, the third step is to manipulate the data to do what you want with it. If it’s an image or picture, at this point it works the same way whether it came from a scanner or from a camera. If you scanned text into the computer you can then manipulate its format or alter it and save it in a document.
*Scanners
-Scanning Images
The first step when scanning an image is to take what you want to scan to the scanner, open up the lid, and place the image face down on the glass bed. Most scanners will have some marking that informs you which way to lay the document down. However, some scanners might not, at which case you will have to flip your document around after it’s scanned and rescan it. After the document is lined up with said markings, lower the lid and run the scanning software.
Scanning software is generally different for every scanner. However the functions of the software are generally the same. Some scanners will automatically scan a preview of what’s on the scanner when you open it, but not all. Once the scanner software is open, you need to tell it what you are scanning. There should be options such as “text” or “text and image” or “image” etc. Select the corresponding setting for what it is you are trying to scan. Once that is finished, you should set the resolution. Most scanners these days give you an approximation of how large the final image is going to be when you scan it at any resolution. So if you change the resolution from 150 to 300 then it will show you the difference in the file size. This is important if you want to fit an image on a floppy disk. It is also important so that you can find a nice balance between quality and file size for your image. At this point, if the scanner automatically previews the document for you, then you can select what part of the document you want to scan (cut out blank space) and thus shrink the file size. With some software you can also select the output type for the file. For example there are different types of image files, which you may have noticed if you have ever tried to open up a file a friend sent you and maybe it didn’t work. Some software will let you choose a program you can directly scan the image into to work with, saving you a step.
After choosing your settings, select the final scan function button in the software. This will now scan the image into the software, or in some cases another program that you specified earlier where you can manipulate it to your liking.
-Scanning Text
Much like with images, load the document on to the scanner. It is more important than with images that your document is facing the right way in order for the OCR to work. Close the lid and run the scanner software.
In the software, make sure you choose the “text” or “text and image” options. Since scanning software varies, you have to look at the options for the OCR settings. With some scanners you have to choose the OCR function before scanning, with others you choose it afterward. OCR is very finicky. Often, if the software has a hard time picking up the characters, you can resolve this by increasing the scanning resolution.
Some software requires you to select what program you want the text to be dumped into before you scan, other software doesn’t give you a choice, and still other software requires you to choose after you scan it. Once you have the right settings for the scanner/software you are working on, click on the final scan button and it will scan the text.
Finding Files in the Computer
If you have forgotten where your photos are, you can run a search from your computer. Click on the start button on the bottom left hand of the windows task bar. Scroll up to “Find”, and then over to “Files” and click on it. A new window will then pop up. In this window will be several fields including “file name” and “where to search.” For “where to search” you should select “my computer.” Assuming we saved all of our photos as jpg’s, you should put the following in the field that says “file name”: “*.jpg” (without the “”). That’s star or asterisk, followed by a period, and then the letters j, p, and g. This will search your entire computer and it will then display and jpg files that it finds. By clicking on “file name” or “date” or “location” you can sort through the files by that heading. Thus you can find the files if you know the name, or if you recognize the directory name, or if you remember what date you last used or created them.
Well, the document I handed out which contained this and the camera section which I left out was a supplemental to my presentation. While I am not with you while you read this, I hope you found it helpful and that it has given you an understanding of the functionality of the scanner and the scanning software.
For information on a great scanner see my review:
http://www.epinions.com/content_9141784196
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Epinions.com ID:
Turin
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Reviews written: 77
Trusted by: 63 members
About Me:
23 year old Computer Technician/Network Admin into Games, Music, and of course Computers.
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