TATERRY asked about scanners for newsletters.........
I have been publishing the Central PA Triumph News for about a year now. I
originally got a hand held scanner because the price was right and I was
trying to save the club a few bucks. Well, I ended up wasting the club's money
by going cheap. The results I got from this piece of garbage were so bad that
I just stopped using it in order to avoid embarrassing myself in print any
further. I advise editors not to make the same mistake.
I have been getting my prints developed at the local CVS drug store where they
can make a Konica floppy disk. The results I get from these are excellent, but
as was noted, at 4 bucks a roll this starts to get pretty salty as the year
goes by.
A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled onto a scanner quite by accident while
cruising the Internet. This unit is a full featured flatbed scanner called
OpticPro 4800P made by Plustek (found them at www.plustek.com). At the time I
ordered, the price was $299 + S&H; this is the lowest price I have ever seen
for a flatbed. And there is no configuration to do or cards to install in your
computer; you plug it into the printer port and then plug your printer into
the scanner. Standard disclaimer applies - I have no connection with the
company......blah, blah, blah.
The last issue of the newsletter was produced with images from this and the
results were excellent. You can prescan your image, crop it, change the
contrast, brightness, etc., and get it just the way you want it before you
scan in color or grayscale. The picture comes out perfect every time; there
are never any jerks, skips or distortions that you get when using a hand held.
I can also put books on it and copy pages, which is something you can't do
with a sheet feed scanner.
An added bonus is that I get articles sent in the mail to me for publication.
I previously had to sit here and retype the whole thing for the newsletter.
Now I just put the page into the scanner and use the OCR software to convert
it into a WORD document that I can insert right into the publisher program.
I am happy as a clam! If you can afford the $300, I recommend going this
route; it may be the cheaper alternative in the long run.
Joe Laurito, Editor
CPTC Triumph News
trglory@msn.com
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