Image scanner

Film scanner, for photographic slides

In computing, an image scanner is a device used to transfer images or text into a computer. There are special models for scanning photo negatives, or to scan books. In the computer, the signal from the scanner is transferred to a digital image. This image can then be edited, printed, etc. All scanners have special parts which are used to take a picture from an object.

Charge-coupled device or Contact Image Sensor parts take the light from the object and change it into a digital signal. The digital signal is then transferred to the computer memory or is read in the scanner's processor. With some software it can be changed to a compressed digital image, like JPEG or PNG. Text printed or written by hand can be changed to ASCII code by an OCR program.

Types

The main types of scanner

• Desktop scanner (flatbed scanner). This is probably the most popular type. An object to be scanned (picture, image, text sheet) is put on the glass. Under the glass, there is a moving Image Sensor.
• Hand scanner. The device is moved on the paper by hand. It was popular during the 1990s.
• Rotary scanner (drum scanner) used for fast scanning large numbers of sheets of paper.
• Smartphone scanner scans a document by taking a photo with the smartphone's camera.

Producers

• Canon
• HP
• Lexmark
• Mustek
• Plustek
• Other

Related pages

• Digital camera

Other websites

• Scanning tips
• More tips on scanning Archived 2007-10-14 at the Wayback Machine
• HP scanning