It all began when my daughter bought me my first creat-a-card program. She figured that making cards would be a cinch because it would enable me to use my own poetry, thereby making each card more personalized.
All too soon, I was using up my options with this program. I needed something more. I bought a scanner. At that time, all I could afford was a cheap, roller-type one which only scanned in black and white. for a while, it served it purpose.
A few years later, after seeing my frustration with this old, picture-distorting machine, my son and his wife decided to surprise me on my birthday. Their gift was an Acer 320P Flatbed Scanner.
This machine is so awesome, it does everything but write my poetry! For instance: I had an old photograph of my mom taken when she was only 17 months old (in 1923). The photograph, being over 75 years old, had become dried and cracked with age, yet it was so special to me, I wanted to place it in an antique-looking frame and hang it on my wall. In its present condition, that was out of the question. Then I decided to try my hand, using my new scanner, to ’’fix’’ the picture.
After it was scanned into the computer, I was able to reduce its size, lighten it so the background would show and using the special ’’mark eraser’’, I eliminated the the cracks that were on the original. It now hangs in a special place on the wall in the room my mom uses when she visits.
While this photograph was in black and white (or rather that odd green tint of years ago), my scanner worked wonders with my sister’s old wedding photograph. Although originally color, it began to yellow with age. After scanning it, I was able to decrease the yellow and enhance the other colors to make it look like new. You can imagine her surprise when she received a 25-year Anniversary card from me, with her WEDDING PICTURE as the front of the card!
I found an old photograph of my dad with my sons when they weren’t more than 7 years old. Dad’s gone now, and I knew my sons would love to have a copy of this picture. My problem was that it was so small and so dark, you barely saw the three smiling faces. I scanned it, enlarged it, made it lighter and the colors brighter! My sons found special place for their copies - atop their TVs.
With this wonderful little machine, I’ve been able to eliminate the ’’red eye’’ effect many photographs had. Lighten and darken photos, eliminate age cracks, increase or decrease the amount of pixels, increase or decrease the sharpness, and even add pictures within pictures.
There are many ’’shapes’’ that can be used to ’’frame’’ a photo. You can even ’’soften’’ the edges for that fade-out look. The scanner includes the capability of storing photos you’ve imported from other programs and perfected. You can even export photos from the Internet into the Scanner program for future use.
With this scanner, you can ’’send’’ a finished photo by fax or email.
It comes with loaded programs such as:
’’MiraScan’’ - which is the driver program and allows you to actually use the scanner without having to read a bulky manual.
Photo Express which helps you create screensavers, cards, calendars and so many other great projects. With Photo Express, you can import your photos directly from your digital camera or video camera.
Text Bridge which allows you to transfer text-based images into editable files. That has come in so handy when I’ve had to copy newspaper articles and edit a few unnecessary lines.
Copier enables you to copy and print anything exactly the way you see it - and in color!
Should you decide to want your photograph facing a different side, just ’’flip’’ it using the ’’transform’’ icon.
For those, like me who like gadgets, there is another icon which holds the special effect. With this, you can morph your photo into various designs (rain drops, rippling, swirling, etc).
The scanner offers you several type of image modes for saving your photos: GIF, BMP, JPG, TIP and much more.
Another good thing about this scanner is that it can be used with either SCSI OR PARALLEL PORT INTERFACES.
This machine is just absolutely awesome.
I can’t believe the things I’ve been able to accomplish since I first plugged it in on my birthday!
As I said, MY KIDS CREATED A MONSTER!’’