USING A SCANNER
Typically, a scanner is used to create a digital image of a document. For most scanners, the document or book is placed upside-down on the scanner. Most scanners have a lid that can be placed over the document. If scanning an old book, care needs to be taken not to tear pages or damage the cover.
When using a scanner, you will use a program that came with the scanner or a graphics program. You may want to adjust the default settings. You'll probably want to make sure the resolution is at least 100 dpi. If you need higher resolution (i.e. for documents with small print), you will want to use 300 dpi. You may also want to scan the documents as B&W images rather than color. Most text documents don't require color and color would create much larger files than B&W.
Once the images are scanned, see Step 6 below for what to do next.
USING A DIGITAL CAMERA
Another way to create a digital image of a document is to photograph the document with a digital camera as a "hand-held scanner." This may be more appropriate when making images of old or delicate documents. Although it is sometimes possible to simply snap a picture of a document while hand-holding the camera in decent light, there are methods for getting better results.
Step 1: Select an appropriate camera.
Although a 2-megapixel (and even a 1-megapixel) camera may be used to get acceptable results, the minimum suggested resolution is 3-megapixels. Higher resolution cameras produce even better images, but they also require more space. For example, a standard CD may hold over 500 3 megapixels images but fewer than 200 7-megapixel images. The optimal choice would be a 3, 4, or 5-megapixel camera.
Although macro is a feature that allows you to take extreme close-ups, most cameras will allow you to photograph a page-size document without the macro feature. If you have the macro feature on your camera, you need to determine the range. Some macro features are only for extreme close-ups and the normal setting would be used for page-size documents.
Step 2: Use a tripod set-up to hold the camera still
As careful as you may be, hand-holding the camera introduces some camera shake. If enough light is used (see next step), this may not be a problem. If there is any blur in the image, the image of the document being copied may be unusable. If using a tripod, a slow shutter speed won't cause blurriness.
Tripods are usually built to take pictures of objects to the side. That would mean holding up the document (or taping it to a wall). For books or delicate documents, this would be unadvisable. The camera may be tilted down and the document placed on a slanted surface. Professionals use a copy stand that holds the camera sideways facing down. Copy stands often have lights on each side to illuminate the object being photographed.
Step 3: Use enough light
There are two sources of light: natural and artificial. It may be possible to set the documents on a table outdoors and photograph them. Care must be taken not to cast shadows over part of the document. A cloudy day is probably better than a sunny day. Artifical light may also be used. A single lamp shining on the document may cause glare and/or shadows. A copy stand has two lights at 45 degrees on each side of the document. Some cost under $100 and may be worthwhile if you are photographing many documents. You may be able to construct your own copy stand using a tripod and two similar lights. Note: fluorescent lights produce much less heat than incandescent lights. Also, the thread for the tripod should be 1/4"-20.
Step 4: The document
If working indoors, wind should not be a problem. If you are outdoors, the document (especially if it is a loose sheet of paper) may need to be held down. This can be done in three ways. For a single page, tape may be affixed to the back. This might not be advisable if it may damage the paper. The document may be held or weighted down at the edges. Also, a sheet of clear, clean glass may be placed over the document. While the sheet of glass does the best job of producing a flat document, it also causes the most glare. If using glass, it may be necessary to use a copy stand set-up to eliminate glare.
Step 5: Taking the photograph
Even on a tripod, if you press the shutter by hand it may introduce shake (unless there is a lot of light and a high shutter speed is used). The best way to eliminate shake is to use a remote release or the self-timer. Remote releases for digital cameras (if available) are usually an accessory that must be purchased separately. Most cameras have a self-timer feature, and there are usually two settings. The shorter setting (usually 2 seconds) is best for copy purposes. It gives you just enough time to press the shutter and remove your hand. The longer 10 second setting also works but takes more time.
You may want to mark the area covered by the camera so you won't have to look at the camera for each image. You can then center the document on the rectangle and take the pictures more quickly. This can be helpful if you are making many photographs.
Step 6: Saving the images
After capturing the images on the camera's flash memory, download them onto your computer. If the images were created using a scanner, they will already be on the computer's hard drive. The computer needs to have a CD or DVD burner to save the images onto a disk. You may want to go through the images and rename them, since the camera will just assign a non-descript name of letters and numbers. You may also want to arrange the images in folders. Once that is done, determine how much memory is used by the images you want to save. If they are too large (i.e. you used a 7-megapixel camera), you may want to resize them to a more reasonable size. Make sure you don't reduce the size and/or resolution too much so that the document becomes illegible. Since most CDs can hold around 700 megabytes, you could put over 500 documents on a CD if you used a 3-megpixel camera (or reduced the size of larger images). If you are knowledgable about graphics, you may be able to optimize the graphics to fit even more images on a CD. For example, if you changed the images from color to B&W, you could fit over 1000 3-megapixel images on a single CD. For text documents, color usually isn't needed. Obviously, if you are using a DVD burner you can hold over 4 gigabytes on one disc so you wouldn't have to worry as much about large files.
