Each scanner has different instructions for use. However, the scanning process is generally the same. In this article you will find all the information on how to scan images for various purposes. Useful tips to help you get the most out of your scanner.

When scanning images, it is important to know the purpose of the image in advance. Do you plan to print this image, send it by e-mail or use it online? Knowing what you intend to do with the scanned image will help you choose the right image format. The most common image file formats are tif, gif, jpg, bmp and psd (Photoshop).

Scan to Print

If you plan to print your scanned image, save it to tif format or bmp. The quality of gif and jpg files in printed documents is worse compared to tif and bmp.

Scan for Network

If you plan to use the scanned image online, save it as a gif or jpg. If it's a simple graphic, save it as a gif. If you scan photos, save them as jpg files.

Scan for various purposes

If you plan to both print the scanned image and use it online, save it in a high-quality format (psd, tif or bmp). If necessary, you can always open this file later and save it as a network image.

File formats

TIFF (extension: tif): Used for high-resolution images intended for printing.

GIF (extension: gif): Used for low-resolution network images, line art.

JPEG (extension: jpg): Used for low-resolution web images or photographs.

Photoshop (extension: psd): Used for high-resolution images intended for editing in Photoshop.
- Bitmap (extension: bmp): Used for high-resolution images intended for printing.

Knowing what you intend to do with the scanned image will help you select the correct file size. If you are going to use the image online, then medium or medium-low image quality will be sufficient.

A small image loads faster on a web page. So you may want to use lower sizes because people uploading images may get nervous waiting for a large image to load.

Printed images may require a larger file size, depending on what document you want to use it in. A larger file will have more a high resolution. The larger the image size, the higher resolution the file has. Resolution is the number of pixels (or dots) per inch of an image (dpi).

There are three main scanning formats: jpeg, pdf or tiff.

so let's look at each format separately, so:

JPEG(pronounced " jpeg", English Joint Photographic Experts Group , by the name of the developer organization) is one of the popular raster graphic formats used for storing photographs and similar images. Files containing JPEG data usually have extensions (suffixes) .jpg, .jfif, .jpe or .jpeg. However, of these .jpg is the most popular on all platforms. The MIME type is image/jpeg.

The JPEG algorithm allows you to compress an image both losslessly and losslessly (lossless JPEG compression mode). Images with a linear size of no more than 65535 × 65535 pixels are supported.

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPEG

Portable Document Format (PDF) - cross-platform format electronic documents, developed by Adobe Systems using several features of the PostScript language. Primarily intended for the presentation of printed products in in electronic format. There are many programs for viewing, as well as the official free Adobe Reader program. A significant amount of modern professional printing equipment has hardware support for the PDF format, which allows you to print documents in this format without using any software. The traditional way of creating PDF documents is a virtual printer, that is, the document as such is prepared in its own specialized program - a graphics program or text editor, CAD, etc., and then exported to the format PDF for distribution in electronic form, transfer to a printing house, etc.

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Document_Format

TIFF(English) Tagged Image File Format) - a format for storing raster graphic images. TIFF has become a popular format for storing images with high color depth. It is used in scanning, faxing, text recognition, printing, and is widely supported by graphics applications. TIFF was chosen as the main graphic format of the NeXTSTEP operating system and from it support for this format moved to

Scanning various documents has long become as commonplace in solving business problems as simply printing documents on a printer or typing text on a computer. Often you need to scan a document in order to subsequently send it to someone by email. If the document is one or two pages long, then there are no problems with this. They appear when the number of scanned pages begins to count in the dozens.

The thing is that when you purchase almost any modern flatbed scanner, you do not get the corresponding software, with wide functionality in the field of saving scanned documents. The software that scanner manufacturers include with their product is only capable of saving scanned documents individually in image format. Most often this format is JPEG or JPG. Less often PNG.
Thus, after scanning a multi-page document, you receive numerous image files, which, if you send to the recipient, you risk receiving disapproving comments about your document management skills and the accuracy of business processes. That is why it is highly desirable to combine individual disparate files into a single document that matches the structure of the original.

How to combine scanned documents into one file online
Decide this task you can do it very simply and quickly enough without even installing additional software on your computer, much less without buying it. IN global network The Internet has many services that will help you combine several JPG images into one PDF file.

Finding such services is not difficult if you use any of search engines by entering the query “jpg to pdf” into the search bar. In this article we will clearly demonstrate the process of creating a unified PDF file based on service.
The converter on jpg2pdf.com automatically optimizes and scales each uploaded image, preserving its original size and resolution. As a result, you get a PDF document so High Quality, how high quality the images you uploaded were.

The undoubted advantage of using online services Another advantage of merging scanned images is that they are cross-platform, meaning you do not need to search for and install the program on your Mac, or in the operating system Linux system. All you need is any modern browser on your computer and an Internet connection.

Our selection reviewed a list of the most popular text scanning programs. An important factor For programs in this category, it is the ability to decipher the text of documents, as well as the quality of scanning - it is necessary that the information is completely readable, and the image scanner clearly transfers every line of the picture into the document.

Some applications have a Russian-language design, which can be another significant factor when choosing the best program scanning. So let's take another quick look at the programs below that can properly recognize text and scan a document into a file:

Computer program ABBYY FineReader 10 Home is one of the most common tools for scanning documents. Knows how to quickly and efficiently find blocks and translate text written in different languages. The advantage of ABBYY FineReader is the presence of an impressive language base. Don't forget about the availability of a Professional version with advanced features.

OCR CuneiForm stands out among its competitors with good grabbing performance for photographed text. It is noteworthy that a photograph can be taken even with a 2MP camera of any rather outdated mobile device. The program boasts a dictionary checking function, which guarantees a high degree of information quality of the finished material.

Scanitto Pro will do an excellent job with more specific work. The application will recognize the text very quickly and will be able to save it in the required document format. It is noteworthy that the program can find a given area of ​​paper and improve the appearance of the material before saving it to the storage medium. There is a function for scanning with one click of a key.

VueScan has a strong database of comparable scanner devices. Among analogues, the program demonstrates the highest connection speed to the scanner. Among the additional pleasant options, it is worth noting the convenience manual settings color rendition.

Choosing free programs scanning documents, you should pay attention to PaperScan Free. The utility is quite simple in terms of functionality, on the other hand, it performs all the necessary scanning options, in addition, you will be pleased with the unique compression technology, which can significantly reduce the file size, leaving the original display quality. If you like it Free version, you can always purchase the extended Professional modification with more impressive functionality.

RiDoc - another one is enough powerful tool for scanning. It is worth noting that Ridoc includes a specialized tool for reducing file sizes without noticeably degrading the display appearance. The information remains readable. If necessary, the RiDoc document scanner will help you export document formats to graphic extensions. The program can install watermarks on finished material and send the document by mail.

Note that we did not consider standard means- software from manufacturers, for example HP Scan, as well as applications whose main functions are aimed at solving other problems: scanner Adobe Reader, Nitro Pro. There is also BlindScanner, created to organize access to scanning devices over a network from different laptop computers.

Also, the portable utility Winscan2pdf Portable was not included in the rating. It works without installation operating system, but lacks many required functions, in particular, does not allow you to change formatting, does not print, and does not recognize words. But the ease of use is okay here. Just run it, select a folder in the dialog box and click on the "Scan" button. However, for it to work you need to not have it disabled in the OS. virtual printer!

Please note that we only considered solutions for PCs - Android applications were not included in the review. You can also select and download from Google Play any you like. Their operating algorithm is approximately the same. And all they allow you to do is digitize a sheet of paper into PDF format using the camera of a smartphone or tablet. To start scanning, you just need to take a photo. It will not be possible to fully process it or translate it into text. Some programs, of course, have a mode for converting digital photographs into text format, but desktop solutions do this much better.

Any photographer's photo archive contains photographs printed on paper. In order to store them effectively or use them for any purpose, they need to be digitized using a scanner. To do this, you need to know how to properly scan and save such photos.

You need to scan photos correctly right away, as this may no longer be possible. Scanning errors can be costly, especially when dealing with hundreds or thousands of photos. We will talk further about how to scan photos correctly.

You can scan photos yourself, or you can entrust it to a specialist at the nearest darkroom, but in any case, you need to understand how and for what purposes you will scan your photos. This is done differently for different purposes. Choosing the purpose of scanning photos is the first step from which scanning begins.

Purposes of Photo Scanning

The purposes for scanning photos may vary. Depending on how the photographs will be used after scanning, the scanning settings depend - resolution, color depth, photo storage format. Proper scanning of photographs is always a search for a compromise between the settings, which determine the quality and size of the future digital photograph.

Fig.1 Digitizing a family photo album is one of the most popular purposes for scanning photographs.

Purposes for scanning photos can be:

1. Convert photos to digital form for efficient storage
2. Restoration of old photographs from a family photo album
3. Copying photos from or for someone
4. Create a music slideshow from photos
5. Increasing the size of a photo or part of it
6. Print a photo book from your photos
7. View on any device
8. Forwarding by email
9. Posting on the Internet
10.Versatile storage

These are the 10 main purposes of scanning photographs, from which it is clear that in each such case, photographs need to be scanned differently. For example, in cases 1,2,5,10, photographs should have maximum quality. In cases 3,4,6,7 the quality should be strictly limited, and in cases 8,9 the file size should be minimal.

In addition to these 10 purposes, of course, there are others, but these are very common and they clearly show how much the files and sizes of digital photos can differ after they are scanned. Of course, all photographs can be scanned with maximum quality, but then their size will be very large, which will require additional resources.

When scanning photographs, the expression “The end determines the means” is relevant. The time spent on additional operations and the money spent on storing unnecessary amounts of information will depend on how correctly the goal is set. Choosing a scanning target is the key to ensuring that you scan your photos correctly.

Once the purpose for which you need to scan photos has been selected, these photos need to be prepared for scanning. This is the second important step in scanning photos, which will help you significantly reduce the overall time of scanning a large number of photos and make the scanning process itself less tedious.

Preparing photos for scanning

If you need to scan one or more photos, you do not need any special preparation for this. But if the task is to digitize a large photo archive, then you cannot do without sorting photos. The more photographs you need to scan, the more carefully they need to be prepared for this (Fig. 2).

Fig.2 Before scanning photos, they need to be divided into characteristic groups on a general basis.

Before scanning a large number of photos, you should first collect them into a separate stack. After that, they are divided into groups, which are characterized by the same settings. This could be size, orientation, resolution, color depth, or something else. It is more convenient to rearrange the scanner for a group of photographs, rather than for each of them.

The process of scanning a large number of photographs is somewhat reminiscent of the work of a conveyor belt. We take a photo from the stack, load it into the scanner, press the button, scan, remove the photo, and repeat this with all the photos. The less you are distracted from these actions, the faster you will finish scanning your photos.

In order to maximize the overall speed of scanning photos, you can scan several of them at once. To do this, you need to place more than one photo in the scanner, but, for example, three or four at once. The only problem is that later they will have to be cut out from the general file.

If scanning photos is carried out on “autopilot”, you can simultaneously watch videos, listen to music or do something else that does not interfere with this. In order to scan photos continuously, you need to complete the third stage - set up the scanner correctly, taking into account the recommendations mentioned above.

Setting up your scanner for scanning

For scanning photos, it is best to have a flatbed marked “Photo”. This scanner has a special driver program for working with photographs. It is more convenient to scan photographs directly from this program (Fig. 3), but it is also possible in other programs, such as Adobe Photoshop or XnView.

Fig.3 It is more convenient to scan photos using the scanner driver program.

Regardless of the scanner brand, the most main parameter The resolution that needs to be chosen correctly is the resolution of the future photograph. It must be chosen for one purpose, as mentioned above. How higher resolution, the higher the quality of the image, but the file size of the photo will be larger. It is important to choose the optimal resolution.

The optimal resolution for scanning photographs for printing on paper is considered to be 300 pixels per inch. This is provided that printing is carried out at a scale of 1:1. If the photo is enlarged twice during printing, then the scanning resolution must be doubled.

Printing photographs on paper is a kind of guideline. This is the maximum quality required to view photos. To view other types of photographs, you do not need such quality as, for example, to view them from a monitor or TV screen.

If we talk about the format in which you need to save photo files when scanning, then there are two main ones: graphic format And . The rule for their use is very simple. To preserve maximum image quality - TIF, in other cases - JPEG.

Scanning photos is a popular way to add digital photos to your photo archive, but there are others. Read about them in the following chapters of this article: