project home page
• introduction
• background & more information
finding the images you need
• on-line galleries
• scanning
• making your own
• taking your own
digital image sizes
• digital image sizes
• resolution
• file size
• e-mail
• copyright
adding images to documents
• position
• cropping
• enhancement
• paper size
• posters
image file types
• jpg or gif
• transparency
screen prints and clip art
• screen prints
• clip art
the problems with text
• fonts
• line length
• emphasis
• text boxes
• text images
free tools
• text
• drawing
• image editing
• web page design

If the image you want is in a book or magazine, or in ‘hard copy’ form of some sort then it can be turned into a digital format to use elsewhere with a scanner. People tend to fall into categories where scanners are concerned: those who use them and those who don’t. If you’ve got one to hand and are familiar with using it then you’ll know what to do. If you’re like many others, however, and either have one but never managed to figure out quite what happened to the images once they got scanned or just can’t get your head round the process then get someone to help. Most colleges have helpful support people who understand the vaguaries of the particular machine they use and will not only get the job done in a flash but should also present you with a digital file on disk or by e-mail that is a sensible size and format for whatever you tell them you’d like to do with it.

For those who really want to learn how to use the thing and can’t get any training then it is recommended that you dig out the instructions for the particular machine as they do vary a great deal. Most scanners take a very high resolution image at the default settings and you may find that you get an image which looks enormous. This will almost certainly need some work before it’s suitable for use but at least you’ll have it in a digital format and can check out some of the other sections for what to do next.

Another point about scanning: do note where the software saves the image it makes. It may well be in your My Pictures folder but it may not be and not all software gives you a chance to give the file a sensible name.