Archiving docs

From: Charles A. Davis <cad_at_gamewood.net>
Date: Tue Mar 31 08:33:49 1998

Aaron Christopher Finney wrote:
>
> I use a Fujitsu 600c to scan everything, using software that I wrote just
> for archiving old manuals. I used the ImageBasic toolkit from Diamond Head
> Software (purchased by my company for other purposes ;) ) that came
> packaged complete with all kinds of neat utilities like de-speckle,
> skew-fix, etc. It's nice to use because I set a few pre-set scanning modes
> that set up the scanner for what I'm doing; noisy b/w, noisy colour,
> text-only, detailed-graphics, etc.
>
> Some suggestions:
>
> 1) Try scanning text or any B/W pages in B/W mode. Since the bits can only
> be white/black, it can automatically get rid of a lot of background noise.
>
> 2) I think the loss of detail on the schematics may be due to the
> resolution of your scanner, as well as noise showing up because of the
> greyscale setting. Try them B/W and just adjust the contrast/brightness
> until you lose the noise. The nice thing about Photoshop is being able to
> edit sections of the page at a time, so you could clean up each little
> section as you go.
>
> 3) Depending on what kind of printer you have, you might try playing with
> the half-tone/dithering settings as well.
>
> Most of my images of 8.5x11 are 50k-250k for B/W, 500k-1.5M for 16-shade,
> and anywhere from 5-15 megs for colour (all at 600dpi). I usually print
> them on an HP Laserjet 4si at 600dpi or an Apple LW16-600 with photo-grade
> enabled.
>
> Aaron
>
> On Mon, 30 Mar 1998, Doug Coward wrote:
>
> > I would like hear from anyone that has done any archiving of their
> > classic computer documents and manuals.
> >
> > I'm currently using a UMAX 300P that claims a maximum 24 bit color
> > resolution of 300x600 dpi. I'm scanning into Photoshop4 and saving
> > in JPEG format. I'm trying to save as much information as I can, so
> > pages that have any color besides black and white, I'm scanning
> > at 299 (that's the max for color) dpi in RGB and and everything else in
> > 299 dpi grayscale. I'm averaging, for 8.5 x 11 pages, about 5.3 Mb
> > for color and 2.1 Mb for grayscale. Just last weekend I burned
> > my first CD of docs consisting of 26 color pages and 170 B/W
> > pages for a total of 454 Mb.( I didn't fill the CD bcause I was anxious
> > to try printing the files at work.)
> > I printed two of the highest detailed B/W pages (schematics) today
> > at 400 dpi. The results were disappointing. All of the fine details were
> > lost. I assume I need to use a higher resolution for printing. I also have
> > quite a bit of background clutter on the printed page. I'm having no
> > problems seeing the smallest details when I magnify the pages in
> > Photoshop.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > =========================================
> > Doug Coward dcoward_at_pressstart.com
> > Senior Software Engineer
> > Press Start Inc.
> > Sunnyvale,CA
> >
> > Curator
> > Museum of Personal Computing Machinery
> > http://www.best.com/~dcoward/museum
> > =========================================
> >
Hi Folks:
There is another thing that has an effect on output quality. That is
trying to print at a different resolution than what the scan was done
at.

Possible to enlarge the image? yes. But do it by multiplying the scan
dpi with an integer value to get the print dpi. Anything else, and
_something_ (either you, or the software) is making a guess at the value
of the intermediate pixles.

Chuck
  
-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------
He, who will not reason, is a bigot;       William Drumond,
he, who cannot, is a fool;                  Scottish writer
and he, who dares not, is a slave.              (1585-1649)
While he that does, is a free man!          Joseph P. 1955-
-----------------------------------------------------------
Chuck Davis  /  Sutherlin Industries   FAX # (804) 799-0940
1973 Reeves Mill Road            E-Mail -- cad_at_gamewood.net
Sutherlin, Virginia 24594            Voice # (804) 799-5803
Received on Tue Mar 31 1998 - 08:33:49 BST

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