How to Do Everything With Your Scanner- P35 ppt

Making the Right Software Choice In summary, choosing the right image-editing software to complement your scanning projects involves asking yourself the following questions: ■ Does any s

Exploring the World of Shareware

Shareware is software that you can download and try for free Sometimes you get to use it indefinitely and other times you might be asked to pay a nominal fee to continue using the software beyond a trial period (usually 30 to 60 days)

A great place to look for image-editing shareware is the ZDNet website, at www.zdnet.com/downloads/specials/free This site, shown in Figure 9-5, contains links leading directly to graphics shareware programs, as well as a list of the 50 most popular shareware programs on the Web

FIGURE 9-5 The ZDNet site contains links to free graphics shareware

154 How to Do Everything with Your Scanner

The following are just a few examples of the interesting free graphics programs you can learn about on ZDNet:

MediaSpyder A free tool that finds and downloads photos, clip art, and animations from the Internet Searches using this program are automatically archived, with the ability to group images in collection folders

FotoAlbum Retrieves photos directly from your scanner and lets you organize, view, print, and share them with others on a free website You can organize pictures into albums, set images as wallpaper, and print multiple-picture layouts

Photocopier Scans your document or photo and sends it directly to your printer

You can choose color, grayscale, or black-and-white scanning at 100 percent or

70 percent; adjust the brightness; and quickly select the number of copies to print

Screen Seize Allows you to photograph your entire computer screen, an application window, a dialog box, a selected area, or an object

Making the Right Software Choice

In summary, choosing the right image-editing software to complement your scanning projects involves asking yourself the following questions:

■ Does any software come bundled with a scanner you’re considering purchasing?

■ Is the image-editing program bundled with the scanner adequate to meet your needs or should you consider purchasing other programs or downloading shareware with additional capabilities?

■ Based on the types of projects you plan to undertake, which additional image-editing capabilities will you need?

■ After narrowing down programs in your price range that have the features you want, which interface is most intuitive and appealing to you?

Do you feel you still need more information to choose an image-editing software?

Chapter 10 takes a look at some of the most commonly used image-editing tools and what they accomplish

CHAPTER 9: Selecting the Right Image-Editing Program 155

9

This page intentionally left blank.

Which Photo-Editing Tools Are Useful for Specific Tasks

Chapter 10

How To…

■ Cut, crop, and rotate images

■ Correct red eye

■ Airbrush like a professional photographer

■ Fix scratched, torn, wrinkled, and stained photos

■ Correct under- and overexposed photos

■ Make good use of other touchup tools

■ Colorize and tint images

■ Draw and paint with your editing software

■ Make cutouts and logos

■ Combine several photos into a single work of art

It’s both a blessing and a burden that there are dozens of image-editing products on the market While the proliferation of programs gives you lots of choices, it means you must carefully select among them, and have a good understanding of which features are useful to you This chapter gives you an inventory of the different types of tools you might be interested in purchasing in a software package, and shows you what they’re used for

A Disclaimer about this Chapter

Please be aware that this chapter is intended to provide you with an overview of

different types of image-editing tools that you might find useful It is not the purpose

of this chapter to provide you with detailed instructions as to how to use any particular image-editing program You’ll need to consult the Help menu or online help for the software for that

As with any computer book, the objective of this one is to enlighten, not confuse; but a chapter providing an overview of various image-editing tools can become frustrating For example, say you’re working with PhotoDeluxe while the author is using illustrations and examples that apply to the PhotoSuite 4 program The book might seem unrelated to the menus and features on your screen That’s why this chapter focuses on the tools themselves, rather than how they’re presented in any particular program interface

158 How to Do Everything with Your Scanner