Scanning Pictures and Text at St. Olaf

Scanning Pictures in Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop Elements is used to scan photos or pictures. This program can be found on any PC or Macintosh on campus that is hooked up to a scanner. Scanners are located in Rolvaag Library 115 ("the Den"), Rolvaag Library 330 (Media Lab), Rolvaag Library Government Documents, the Science Library, and Old Main 10.

  1. Open up Adobe Photoshop Elements.

  2. Make sure that the scanner is turned on.

  3. Place your image facedown on the scanner bed. The best way to line up the picture is to push it up against the corner of the scanner by the green arrow.

  4. Inside Photoshop, go to the File menu and pull down to Import and then to Twain Aquire, Twain 32, VistaScan, etc.

  5. The program used to scan the image (UMAX Vista Scan, HP Precission Scan Pro, etc., will open. Click the Preview button to see a preview of your image.

  6. In the preview window, use your mouse to draw a box around the image (or portion of the image) you would like scanned.You can move and resize the select box by clicking and dragging the comers.

  7. Now use the drop-down menus to choose your desired options, such as resolution. 75 dpi is standard for images which will be shown on computers screens, such as in web pages and PowerPoint presentations. Higher resolutions (150, 300, etc.) should only be selected to enlarge a picture which will be shown on a computer or to get better quality for printing.

  8. Now you are ready to scan. Click on the Final or Scan button. The scanner will scan your image. This may take a while depending on how large your image is. When it is done, the scanning program window should disappear and your scanned image will appear in a window of its own in Photoshop.

  9. Now just go to the File menu and Save to save your image to disk. If you are going to be using it on the web you will probably want to pick JPEG in the Format tab.

Note:The larger your image is the more space it will use. You can adjust the size of your image after scanning in Photoshop by going to the Image menu and pulling down to Image Size.

 

Scanning Text with Omnipage

OmniPage Pro is an Optical Character Recognition application that will scan a text document and then convert it into most common word processor formats such as Microsoft Word. OmniPage Pro can be found on the computers with scanners in Rolvaag Library 115 ("the Den").

Important:For the best results, the text to be scanned should be as clear as possible with no writing in the margins, etc. A laser-printed copy is best.

  1. Start OmniPage Pro. Multiple versions of this program exist, but these instructions will follow version 10.

  2. Lay your document facedown on the scanner bed. Push the document up towards the corner of the scanner with the green arrow. This will insure that your document is as straight as possible.

  3. Next, in OmniPage Pro, you can either have the computer automatically perform all the necessary steps to OCR a page or you can manually go step-by-step.

  • To have the computer do it automatically, click the Auto button. For most documents this is perfectly adequate.

  • To manually go through the steps...

  • First click on the button with the scanner picture on it. This should be right above the pull-down bar that says Scan Image.

  • The next button to the right will divide your document into zones. Underneath the button you can choose what format your document is in. Then click on the Zone button. This will draw zones around the text of your document. Make sure that there is a blue box around all the text that you want read and that anything else is not selected.

  • Finally, move on to the next button with the glasses on it. This will convert the image into text.

* To add another page, place the next page in the scanner and repeat the above steps. Do this for every additional page of the document.

Warning: You may want to save after scanning every couple of pages in case the computer crashes, etc.

When you are done scanning, you can click on the rightmost button above the bar that says Save As.... Be sure to specify the type of file you would like your document saved as. More than likely you will want to choose Microsoft Word.

OCR Scanning is not an exact science. You should proofread your document when you are finished for any errors or typos that might have occurred.

Last Revised: July 11, 2002