Alan's HINTS & TIPS - Some Flatbed Scanner Thoughts.

Welcome to Alan's Hints 'n Tips

Some Flatbed Scanner Thoughts.

"I bought a scanner so I can send my photographs to friends
but they say the pictures are too big."

A photo 140mm x 100mm would appear about this size if scanned at 1:1 or 100%.

How do I scan pictures at the right size?

You need to set your scanner to the appropriate scan resolution before you scan your photograph.

Here are a few general ideas.
For sending photographs by e-mail you would usually scan the photograph at a 1:1 ratio (or 100%) to make it appear on the screen in the same size. This will be in the region of 72 to 75 dpi (dots per inch). A photograph 140mm x 100mm would appear on your screen the same size as the original, that is, about half the width of the screen assuming your screen resolution is set at 800 x 600 dpi which is the most common screen format at present.

Using higher scan resolutions.

There may be occasions where you want the picture to be bigger on the screen than the original photo size. In this case you would set the scanner to a higher scan resolution. For instance, a photo 140mm x 100mm would appear this size if scanned at 4:1 or 400% - far too big to be viewed all at once on your screen.

Note that the file size of the scanned picture will be considerably bigger if scanned at 400%, and NO, it won't just be four times bigger.

Remember that the picture will be four times wider AND four times deeper !!!!!

A photo 140mm x 100mm would appear about this size if scanned at 4:1 or 400%.

As I don't have experience on all the various brands of scanner I'll stick to just general ideas and use a recent Canon Scanner series as a model - the FB630 and N640 types.

The general ideas:
Use a lower resolution for pictures that are going to be used solely for updating friends and relations on your activities. This will be as described in the first section of this page - scanned at 100% or same size as the original picture.

RESOLUTION: Start your scanner program and look for the settings for scan size (100%, 300%, etc) and change this to 100% if it is set differently. Note that you can generally use alternate settings in DPI (dots per inch) if you prefer.

SETTINGS: Under "Settings" select "Image Type", "Color Photos".

PREVIEW: Once you have placed the photo in the scanner select "Preview". On most scanners there is an option to "pre-scan" or "preview". Pre-scanning gives you a view of where your photo/picture is situated inside the scanner.

SELECTING the area to scan: At this stage it is usual to "select" the area of the image you wish to scan. Do this by clicking and holding the left button while dragging it down and across the image you want to "Select"(or highlight) so that only the actual picture is "highlighted". You can select just a portion of a photograph if you wish rather than perhaps a whole group of people. Now when you scan, the only section to be scanned will be the highlighted section and not the total area of the scanner bed. This saves time and also avoids having to "crop" an image later. Warning: If you fail to "Select" either the whole photo or a section of it, the scanner will usually scan the entire flatbed area resulting in a scan of your picture plus a lot of white area as well. However, some scanners automatically detect just the material to be scanned and ignore the white area outside this.

START SCANNING: The command for this will vary from one manfacturer to another. With "Canon" the button to look for is labelled "Save". Strange that! However, that's the way it is.
Note: If you are using a graphic program to access your scanner you would use; "File", "Import", "Twain', "Acquire" which will automatically bring up your Scanner software. When you want to scan the image the button name is "Scan" when the "Acquire" method is used.

Saving the scanned picture.

When using the "Save" button you are first asked where you want to save it and in what format. See picture on right.

Once you have given the picture a name and clicked "Save" the scanner will operate and when the operation is complete the picture will be saved in the place you selected.

Click the little triangle at the right side of
"Save as type:" to get the type options.

Picture saving/sending format: As a general rule you should use .JPG format to save pictures if you are going to send them to friends. This format saves in a compressed mode which makes a smaller file and therefore takes less time to send via e-mail. Other formats can be used for specific purposes.

See also:
How do I make the picture smaller afterwards if I saved it in a large size? Check this page.