Scanning Images

This page describes basic scanning. It is possible to modify the image as you scan it or after you scan it. Modifying images is fun, but can require large amounts of time to get it right. This is not discussed here. Hundreds of books have been written about this. Tech support will provide further instructions. In Adobe Photoshop, pull down the "File" menu to "Import" and then slide the mouse to the right and pull the "Import" menu down to "ScanWizard PPC3.0.6" The following two windows will appear

Before you scan images, check the following in the Settings Window

• For color images, you want "Millions of Colors"
• High resolution best. However, high resolution leads to large data files. A resolution of 300 dpi usually is fine. This leads to images that use about 25 MB of file space.

There are many other settings. If you need to adjust the brightness or colors of an image, the technical support staff can assist you. The Preview Window In this window, you can set the scan area. Just drag an edge or corner of the dashed rectangle. When the scan region is selected, hit "Preview" to be sure the area is correct, or "Scan" to scan the image and return to Photoshop.

Cropping

Click and drag to outline part of the picture that you want. You may modify this region after it has been selected by dragging one of the corners.

When you are ready to crop, move the mouse to the center of the region selected (the cursor will change to scissors as shown below) and click.

Here is the cropped image.

Image Size

Type in the desired width or height. Changing the width will change the height and vice-verse.

Saving the Image

Use encapsulated postscript if you want to include the image in a paper. You will be asked to select preview information. This depends on how you will use the image. Contact Tech Support for more information.

Use jpeg if you want to include the image in a web page - All images in this document were saved using maximum quality.

Use tiff if you want to convert the image to another format. Use Macintosh Byte ordering for tiff documents.

Before you save the image, you may want to adjust the resolution to reduce the amount of disk space that is required. To reduce the resolution, pull down the "Image" menu to "Image Size ...". Enter the new resolution.

Decreasing the resolution may decrease the quality of the image. For images included into web pages, decrease the resolution. The decrease in quality will not be noticed and the file size will decrease considerably.

For example, the house, pictured here, was scanned from a 4in x 6in photograph at 300 pixels per inch. It took 8 minutes to scan and required 8.7 MB of disk space. It was saved as a jpeg image with resolution of 100 pixels per inch and requires about 100K of disk space.

Here are some file sizes of this image.

To save the image, pull down the "File" menu to "Save" or to "Save As..." You will see the following

Click and drag the mouse on the box to the right of "Format:" to change the format. Name the file and click "Save"

This information is available in alternative formats upon request by individuals with disabilities. Please send email to alt-format@msi.umn.edu or call 612-624-0528.

HOME | QUESTIONS | FEEDBACK Events | Links | People | Publications | Support | Welcome

URL: http://www.msi.umn.edu /user_support/scivis/scanning/scanning-images.html This page last modified on Wednesday, 23-Apr-2008 11:15:49 CDT   Please direct questions or problems to help@msi.umn.edu   Website related questions or problems should be directed to webmaster@msi.umn.edu The Supercomputing Institute does not collect personal information on visitors to our website. For the University of Minnesota policy, see www.privacy.umn.edu.