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scanner file size issue

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by itgirli 1 view

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We have a new scanner here that scans a page as either pdf,jpg, and so on. Only one person uses the scanner. however any image she scans ends up being over 5MB. She is unable to email them at this size. these pages have been scanned at different resolutions. I'm not a big scanner person. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

11 replies

by cg it

you'll need something like Photoshop. With Photoshop you resize the pic down and/or you can change the format type. Photoshop lets you take a JPEG image and instead of JPEG make GIF or a web page HTML image file that makes a lot small footprint than a 5MB JPEG.

by thechas

Changing the scan resolution should dramatically reduce the image file size.

However, you must drop the resolution below the maximum optical resolution of the scanner before you see significant file size reduction.

For most document work, 600 * 600 DPI should work fine.

Check the jpeg file settings and make sure that the compression level is greater than 3 to 1.

Also check the color depth settings as higher color depths greatly increase image size.

Check the CD that came with the scanner. Most scanners include image editing software.
You should be able to change the resolution and color depth on a stored image and save it as a smaller file.

As far as free tools, check out the links in the Graphic Editors and viewers posted at www.nonags.com
Irfanview,
Rahman,
and Gimp are worth a try.

For inexpensive (under $100 US) try
Adobe Photoshop Elements,
JASC Paint Shop Pro,
U-Lead Photo Impact

Chas

by virgoan

Hi, just use MS Photo Editor to resize it. From Image|Resize, choose the percentage such as 70% or 55% to resize your image. MS Photo Editor is under MSO97/XP package and of course if you are using MS product. This software is really great as compare to others. Try this out.

by md_hashim

You may want to check the enlarging option as well. If you have set the scanner to enlarge scanned images (more that 100%) resulting filesize is huge.
Also editing the image with MS Photo Editor - brightness, contrast, Gamma resolution can help reduce filesize.

by wlbowers

The higher the dpi resolution you scan the larger the file size. Add color to the party and it jumps even more.

To ocr a text document scan it at a max of 300 dpi. This seems to be what most ocr programs want.

If you are going to email the image and it is a mix of text and graphics. Scan at 100 to 150.

If you are just going to view the file on screen, 72 dpi should be sufficient.

The following will give you a comparison. The numbers are based on an 8.5 x 11 document:

300 dpi black & white 1 meg
300 dpi 24 bit color 24.08 meg
150 dpi 24 bit color 6.02 meg
96 dpi 24 bit color 2.47 meg
72 dpi 24 bit color 1.39 meg

300 dpi 16 bit grayscale 16.05 meg

The scan utility should have a manual scan or a preference setting that would allow you to set the dpi you plan on scanning with.

The above numbers were taken in Photoshop 7 on a Epson Perfection 3170.

Hope This Helps

Lee

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