Scanning Documents for PDF....

[fab5freddy]

i have a little question about scanning documents for PDF viewing ......
to get the best resolution,
How should one scan documents on a flatbed scanner ? should the dpi be set to a certain setting ?
i would just like to scan all my documents, so i can chuck all these papers, and lighten my load.... ; )

thanks!

[LeviG]

well my document scanner scans at upto 600 dpi so I would assume anything upto that should be fine. I normally do 300dpi (600 takes an age) and the res seems more than enough for onscreen/reprints - remember the average screen is 72dpi but the print needs higher than that

[fab5freddy]

Can i use a Canon Flatbed scanner to make decent document scans ?

[oscuh]

600 dpi for print or web if you can get away with it. Anything lower than about 400 will have the potential to look grainy onscreen.

And any decent flatbed will work. Just make sure you set it up accordingly (IE bitmap/lineart for straight text) etc.

[a cat *miaow*]

600 dpi seems very excessive - i've always used 200dpi maximum (normally around 120dpi). I think a fax is around 200dpi and they show up on screen fine.
Think the most important thing is to make sure you use Bitmap/Lineart as the setting (unless of course you have lots of images).

[LeviG]

canon flatbed will be fine, it will just take an age (individual sheets etc)

I would say the type of file/image compression has as much influence on the end result as the resolution. A highly compressed 600dpi pdf can look worse than an uncompressed 100dpi pdf when scaled up etc.

I would suggest trying a couple of different resolutions (100,200 & 300 dpi say), see whether they're good enough for you and think about how you're going to end up using these scans, ie just for backup and save space for paper (my main reason - 300dpi in my case but I have lots of storage space)

[fab5freddy]

i wanna scan all my vital documents like birth certificates, tax papers, etc..... so i guess i want very hi quality readable scans.....

[xfiftyfour]

a "good" dpi is very subjective - it depends on what you're going to be using the scans for. do you just want to be able to view them on screen? do you want to be able to print them later?

if you're just viewing them on screen, anything higher than 72 dpi is basically just wasting HD space. for a quick print (ie: since you're not printing these professionally, obviously), you don't need ANYTHING over 300dpi, and less would definitely suffice.

Originally Posted by LeviG

I would say the type of file/image compression has as much influence on the end result as the resolution. A highly compressed 600dpi pdf can look worse than an uncompressed 100dpi pdf when scaled up etc.

uhm, only if you saved that 600dpi PDF as a 72dpi PDF...