Avoiding the Scanning Blues: A Desktop Scanning Primer

Most chapters begin with clear explanations of concepts; the logic being that you can't get far as a manipulator of images if you don't know what terms mean, or what effects various pieces of the imaging chain have on the end product. The style is concise and readable (although, for clarity, mathematical equations should have been set out from the body text), and illustrations ("good" and "bad" sample photos, plus screen shots) enhance the text. Easy-to-follow how-to passages appear throughout, most of which have to do with aspects of Adobe Photoshop. The book challenges you to scan practice images that have problematic visual characteristics and fix some intentionally bad originals. --David Wall

Topics covered: Scanning for professionals, with an emphasis on getting the highest possible printed product from the originals at hand; in-depth coverage of evaluating an image to be scanned, performing the scanning process, and performing filtering and other manipulations on newly digitized images; also, the specifics of transparency and negative scanning, as well as of digital image theory.

Also note that Mr. Tally assumes you'll be using a flatbed scanner. He makes no mention at all of film scanners or of scanning film. Granted, most of the rules that apply to flatbed scanning apply to film scanning as well, but the least he could have done was to say so.

To his credit, he provides a great deal of valuable information, most of it neatly summarized at the end of every chapter. Unfortunately, the page layout is cluttered with examples and illustrations that compete with, rather than complement, the text. If you have any familiarity with scanning at all, you may find yourself reading the summaries first and resorting to the main text only for clarification.

If your only interest is producing scans for desktop publishing, this book is still a good investment. If not, you may find it misses the mark.