What Are Scanners?
Scanners are used to scan sheets of paper and images onto a computer in an image format. There are four main types of scanners, each of them fulfilling a different purpose and fitting a different budget.
Flatbed Scanners
Flatbed scanners are larger desktop scanners, and are often built into printers. Their size ranges from standard paper to legal size paper, and they are great for scanning a wide variety of media onto the computer. They have a flip up cover over the glass plate where items are scanned, and as such can be used to scan bulk items such as book covers or DVD cases. A regular flatbed scanner, on its own, costs around $100, and a printer with a built in scanner range from $100 to $300, depending on their other features. These scanners are great for home or personal use, and are often used in offices and businesses as well.
Photo Scanners
Photo scanners provide higher resolution and greater color than flatbed scanners. While flatbed scanners are able to handle photographs, photo scanners are capable of handling slides and negatives as well, as they come with special scanners and software to digitize these old photos. Many also come with software that is used to clean up and edit old photographs. These scanners start around $120, but raise in price drastically for more high quality scanners. They are really only necessary if you are a photographer.
Sheet Fed Scanners
Sheet fed scanners are similar to flatbed scanners, but are loaded differently. The sheets that are to be scanned are fed into the scanner one at a time. They are often smaller than flatbed scanners, but scan with less quality. This means that they are ideal for scanning documents, but not photos. Because the sheets are fed into the machine, it’s great for scanning large amounts of documents. They are much more expensive than other forms of scanners, and sell for around $300.
Portable Scanners
As the name suggests, these can be taken with you on vacation or business trips. The quality of the scans is questionable, and these scanners are only really useful for scanning documents as photos will appear too blurry to see properly. They are more expensive than flatbed scanners, and are really only useful if you are constantly away on business and need a scanner with you at all times. These scanners start selling for about $130-$150.
Dylan Lamberti - I have been writing on-line for a period of just under two years, and have written for such sites as Demand Media Studios and Brighthub.
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