HARDWARE REVIEW by Walter A. Fair
EXAMINING THE SCANNER
There are two types of scanning-reflective and transparency. You would use a flatbed scanner to scan a photo or a document. A light source is directed on the picture and then the scanner's "camera" (it's array of photo-sensing sampling elements) records the pattern and characteristics of the light that has bounced (been reflected) back from the artwork. The resulting scan is somewhat degraded from the original because it didn't come from the original image, the negative. However, for most purposes, the quality is sufficient and quite acceptable.
The price of flatbed scanners ranges from $60 to $500 depending on the resolution and size. You get what you pay for but, most of the time, an inexpensive scanner will do quite nicely.
A transparency scanner is used mainly to scan slides and negatives. A light source is directed through the transparency and captured by the photo-sensitive cells that record the color with all the life and brilliance seen by the human eye. They are also far more expensive than flatbed scanners ranging between $500 and $2,000.
Scanners are fairly easy to install provided you follow the simple directions. One of the biggest problems people have when using a scanner is not turning it on either prior to or at the same time the computer gets turned on. Remember one of the first things your computer does when it's turned on is to look for all the peripherals that are attached. If the peripheral is not turned on, the computer doesn't know it's there. Consequently, it doesn't acknowledge that it's attached. Shucks, we know where it is and can even see it! Just remember, the computer is too dumb to know what you are thinking or what you see, so be kind to it and turn the scanner on first.
Did you ever wonder what a TWAIN is? When you open your favorite picture editing program such as PictureIt and click on the choice to scan in a picture, it asks you to select your TWAIN device. You select
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your scanner by name and soon the scanner program appears on top of your picture editing screen. The next step usually is to scan the picture or document and it normally ends up on the work area of the picture editing program. So where does the TWAIN come in? TWAIN is the interface that allows a program to run within another program. In this example, it enabled the scanner program to start and run in the photo editing program.
Installing a Scanner with Windows 98
Windows 98 can detect and install the needed driver software for several scanner models; i.e., UMAX, HP, and Logitech. Those scanners not included must be installed with the instructions provided. After you have followed the manufacturer's instructions for attaching the scanner to your computer, restart it and see if Windows detects the new hardware. If you do not get a message saying that Windows has found new hardware, go to the Start > Settings > Control Panel and double click Add New Hardware. Follow the instructions of the New Hardware Wizard as it take you through the process.
If you encounter difficulties, you may want to take contact the scanner's technical support information. NYT - J.D. Biersdorfer
BUYING A DIGITAL CAMERA
Thinking of buying a digital camera? Here are some bits of information that you should consider and explanations that should help you understand "digital camera speak."
Image quality and size together determine the file size of a photograph. Image size is usually described in pixels with common sizes 320x240, 640x480, 1024x768, 1280x960 and 2048x1536. Cameras are advertised as 1,2 or 3 mega-pixel pictures. If you multiply the pixel size of the picture, e.g., 1024 pixels multiplied by 960 pixels = 938,040 pixels that would be rounded off to 1 mega-pixel. That would translate to a 14 1/4 inch by 10 ½ inch picture at your monitor's resolution of 72 pixels per inch. However, when you print it, resolution should be set at 200 pixels per inch reducing the size of the picture to 3
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