barneyhairball wrote: …I expect using my scanner is the best way. Can I ask a few questions:
Do I use mac Image Capture or a specific Adobe?
I use Image Capture, and I think it works great. If it works for your scanner, then I would prefer it to other apps that seem to come with all kinds of preconceptions about what we want. Image Capture does it all but without interference from know-it-all buttinsky apps.
My scanner does not give a choice of grey, only B & W, colour and text. I have read to use grey, but can't. Any advice as my first attempt came out pinkish?
Grey(or gray for Americans) isn't a thing. White isn't really a thing, either-- it's just the color of the paper you use. You just get shades of back (called grays) from different densities of black ink. Places with no black ink just lets the white paper show through. B&W jmeans no more than "no colour "(or no color. This is driving spellcheck crazy!)
What resolution should I use? I can't really tell just by looking; is the 1,200 the best?
This depends on what you're going to do with the scan. The standard is 300 dots/inch for text held at a normal reading distance. At that resolution (which is not 300, but 300 dots per inch--you're welcome to calculate in cm) you can't see the dots-- they all blend together. But if you hold the paper closer, you can see the dots. That works for pictures, too, but with pictures you often hold them close, so 600 dpi would be better. If you have a small picture, maybe "wallet size," and you blow it up to 8x10 inches, then you'll see the dots even at 600 dpi, so you might make it 1200 dpi if you intend to zoom in on small pictures. If you put a picture on a wall and stand back to see it, then the resolution can be less. If you're going to look at a picture on a computer screen, then 250 pixels per inch is darn good. Old monitors were 72 dpi. I've been scanning old family pictures, and the resolution I choose is greater for smaller pictures, because they will all end up on the same sized screen. Scanning at a higher resolution than you need takes longer, and it makes files that are larger.
Should I save to pdf or other? It one better for photos?
Really, pdf is for documents that have text and pictures. It's designed for printers. The most general format for digital pictures is jpg (or jpeg--it's the same.) jpg is a "compression scheme" that makes smaller files. It replaces a whole row of blue sky pictures with "6000xblue" for instance to save space. Some data in a picture isn't necessary for humans to perceive, so you may be asked to choose the "quality" of the jpeg compression-- I would use highest quality.
Those are good, important questions. Let us know what you figure out…
