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Basic Scanning

Three Programs used for Scanning:

Photoshop--for photographs, slides, negatives, or illustrations
Adobe Acrobat--for converting text documents to pdf format
Abbyy FineReader--for converting text documents to word format

Photoshop (PC)

  1. Place your photo on the scanner with the corner in the upper right corner. There's a big arrow to indicate where you should line things up.
  2. Open Photoshop.
  3. Choose File-->Import-->Epson Twain 5. It may take a while for the scanning software to open. Be patient.
  4. Once the software opens, you will see the following. If you don't, you may need to switch to Manual Mode.

(note: if you get an error message, try closing photoshop, turning off the scanner, turning it back on and then opening photoshop again.)

  1. Choose your document source. Usually this will be "flatbed" unless you're scanning multiple pages in which case you probably want to use a different program (Acrobat or FineReader).
  2. Choose your image type. The most common for photos and illustartions are:
    1. Color Photo (24 bit)
    2. Black & White (if you have a b&w photo or if you want to convert a color photo to b&w)
    3. Illustration (for drawings, graphs, charts, etc.)
  3. Choose the destination. This is what you're going to do with the document when you're done scanning. Selecting an option sets some default parameters for resolution.
  4. Manually adjust resolution if you want. Remember: the higher the resolution the bigger the file size. If you're e-mailing or putting a picture on the web, you probably don't want to set this too high. Photoshop also allows you to adjust the resolution after scanning.
  5. Click the preview button.
  6. Select an area to scan. Usually a photograph doesn't take up the whole scanning area. To only scan the area you want, move your mouse over the scan area, then click and drag to select the area to scan.
  7. Click scan.
  8. Now close the scanning interface and begin working in Photoshop.

Photoshop (Mac)

The process is basically the same as on a PC except the interface looks slightly different. Here is a picture of that interface and what you need to do with each option.

 

Adobe Acrobat

  1. Place your photo on the scanner with the corner in the upper right corner. There's a big arrow to indicate where you should line things up.
  2. Open Adobe Acrobat.
  3. Choose File-->Create PDF> From Scanner. It may take a while for the scanning software to open. Be patient.
  4. Choose your format, either single or double sided
  5. Choose the destination. This is what you're going to do with the document when you're done scanning. Select to begin a new document or to add this page to a current open document.
  6. Move the triangle between a higher compression or a higher quality, remembering that a higher quality scan will have a larger file size.
  7. Click Scan. If you are working on a PC, follow the directions listed under Photoshop (PC), beginning with number 5. If you are working on a Mac, refer to the directions listed under Photoshop (Mac).

Abbyy FineReader (PC only)

  1. Place your photo on the scanner with the corner in the upper right corner. There's a big arrow to indicate where you should line things up.
  2. Open Abbyy FineReader from the start menu.
  3. Select Scan from the image bar at the top of the screen, pictured below.
  4. Refer to Adobe Photoshop (PC) directions beginning with step 5 to set the scan settings.
  5. Once the image is scanned and the scanner window is closed, select Read from the image bar. The scanned image will appear on the left and the text document will be on the right. After the document has been read, it is possible to select Check Spelling from the image bar.
  6. Save the image by selecting Save from the image bar. It is possible to save into many formats, such as Rich Text, PDF, and Microsoft Word.
Want to print this out? Go to File-->Print and the document will be automatically formatted for printing!

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