SCANNER REPAIRS PHOTOS ON THE FLY
QUESTION
I'm considering the purchase of a flatbed
scanner. There are many different models but one of my purposes is to
repair my old photographs. Is there anything I should know before I
make a purchase?
ANSWER
It used to be that flat bed scanners cost over a
thousand dollars but with the low cost of today's models, every
computer should have one. And one new model actually repairs damaged
photographs as it scans them.
The flatbed scanner today is really a
multifunction peripheral. Of course it can scan in any color picture
be it a photograph or a page out of a magazine. These images can be
saved to disk and then embedded within an email, printed on a color
printer, burned to a picture CD and lots more. Archiving your precious
photographs to a digital form will preserve them for all time, to be
enjoyed by future generations.
Scanners also perform optical character
recognition (OCR) which is the process that transcribes a scanned
image of printed text into the actual printed characters, so that they
can be moved into and edited by any word processor. Scanners can also
be used as color and B&W photo copier, with any scanned image being
duplicated and sent to your printer. And a scanner can act as a fax
machine, sending the scanned image to your fax-modem.
 But
now Microtek has introduced yet another feature with their newest
model. Billed as the world's first one-step photo restoration scanner,
the ScanMaker 6800 actually repairs damaged photographs as it scans
them. Using something called Digital ICE for Photo prints, the process
uses a combination of software and the scanner's built-in hardware to
correct most scratches and cracks commonly found on old photos. In
addition, it will erase dust and lint marks as well as other commonly
found imperfections on a photograph. I know that you can buy software
that helps to repair photographs and the like, but remember that the
6800 includes a built-in system that's specifically designed to do
photographic repair at the hardware level. This greatly speeds up that
process while reducing the load on your computer's microprocessor.
The 6800 has some impressive specifications for
a flatbed scanner in this price range. It offers a 4800 by 2800
dots-per-inch resolution, 48-bit color depth, and both the newer and
faster USB 2.0 as well as FireWire interfaces. High speed connections
like these come in handy, especially when scanning high quality, large
bit depth images. These kinds of scans can easily produce files that
can grow into sizes spanning many megabytes. Also included is a
built-in 4x5 inch Transparency Adapter.
The 6800 also sports five Smart-touch buttons.
They offer Scan, Copy, Email, OCR and Scan-to-Web functionality.
Normally, one would have to load in the proper applications to perform
any of these functions, but the included ScanMaker Wizard application
lets you perform these functions without even having to touch the
mouse.
The 6800 includes a software bundle for both PC
and Macintosh platforms. The 6800 is also fully compatible with the
newer Macintosh OS X operating system. If your primary need is
photographic repair, check out the 6800 as it does that without
sacrificing the other desired features of a flatbed scanner. $399.
www.microtekusa.com |
