Scanners: Product Overview

Buying a scanner to digitize film pictures, printed documents, or other hard copy materials doesn't have to be complicated. Here are a few pointers to keep in mind.

• Flatbed scanners are the most popular because they're the most flexible: they can handle books and other odd-shaped items.
• 4800 dots per inch (DPI) is the highest resolution you're likely to see, and 2400 DPI is the most you'll likely need. Resolution is a measure of how detailed an image your scanner can create. In most cases, 4800 DPI is overkill – 2400 DPI is enough to make photo-quality reprints. Just 300 DPI is enough for most text recognition, and for web photos, 100 DPI is sufficient.
• 24-bit color depth is the industry standard and should be adequate for most business use. For exact color matching in print applications you may want 48-bit color depth.
• Ask yourself what you are going to scan before you start shopping. Inexpensive scanners typically have only enough space to scan a single letter- or legal-sized sheet of paper, which may or may not be enough for your scanning needs.
• If possible, look for a demo of the scanning software included with the machine. The best software makes the entire process easy – from previewing the image to saving it in the format you want. Many scanners also include basic image editing software to help you adjust the image quality.

High-volume scanning
If you expect to scan more than a few pages at a time, you may want to upgrade to a scanner with an automatic document feeder or ADF. As often seen on office copiers, ADFs feed stacks of papers through the scanner one at a time.

In addition, businesses that expect to make regular, ongoing use of their sheetfed scanner should give more weight to scanning speeds than occasional users. Make sure you get specs on scan speed based on similarly-sized originals, identical resolutions, and both single and double-sided scanning if applicable. For low-volume scanning, speed should be less of a concern.

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