PsL Monthly 1995 February/PSL_Monthly_Shareware_CD-ROM_Public_Software_Library_February_1995.iso/psl_news/psl_news.0

Text File | 1997-01-10 | 12KB | 277 lines

TO EXIT THIS SCREEN AND VIEW THE PSL DATABASE:
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   Click on the File menu and PsL News.


Communications and Religion Moved:
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This CD contains over 1100 new/updated programs received during the
last month plus a section of our library: Business.

Past CD's featuring the Business section included the Communications
and Religion sections too. Because of the increasing amount of space
used by the new/updated programs (over 300MB), and the increasing
number of programs in all of the sections of the library, we are not
able to fit the Communications and Religion sections on the Business
CD anymore.

The Communications and Religion sections will be put on other CDs
at some point in the future.


Scanners - Next Big Thing?
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Every once in a while a computer accessory comes along which might
be considered a luxury at first, but which has enough consumer
appeal to reach the "critical mass" of demand which leads to lower
prices which fuels greater demand until the item almost becomes a
standard.

Laser printers, 17" monitors, high-speed modems, and CD-ROM drives
are all examples. Color scanners may be next.

Scanners have been around a long time, but only now do we see
high-resolution color scanners falling into that magic under-$1000
price range which can start the spiral for them. (The Epson 800C
which we have sells for under $800 by Arlington Computer,
800-548-5105, and many other mail-order companies.)

What are the features of a color scanner which could lead to a
critical-mass demand?

1. FAXing should provide the cost-justification for most buyers.

Millions of people have FAX-modems which let them FAX computer
files, but they cannot FAX paper documents such as signed contracts,
newspaper articles, etc. For about what a plain-paper FAX machine
costs, you can get a color scanner and FAX-modem and, using your
printer to print FAXes when you want hard copy, have all the
advantages of a plain-paper FAX plus a lot more.

This combo has many advantages over a stand-alone FAX machine.

It's cheaper to run because you can view files and print only those
you wish, saving paper and toner.

You can import incoming FAXes into graphics programs to clean them
up or edit them before printing. Likewise, you can scan in a
document or graphic and modify it before FAXing it.

You can re-FAX incoming FAXes to others with less loss of quality.

You can FAX documents and graphics right from the software which
creates them with less loss of quality and without having to print
them first.

2. Using a scanner-laser printer combo as a copy machine is yet
another cost-justification for a scanner. PsL BBS sysop Baine
Brimberry bought a scanner almost solely for this purpose.
Software in PsL's shareware library lets you scan a document
directly to the laser printer for output. Baine says the quality
of copy is outstanding.

3. Archiving pictures and documents is more of a luxury use, but if
the FAXing function has cost-justified the scanner, you will enjoy
this and other uses.

Color pictures lose their true colors over time. And how often do
you get out the photo album and look at them?

Scan those pictures into your computer and use them as random
Windows wallpaper, and you'll get to enjoy them all the time. And
you aren't limited to family photos. From magazines, scan pictures
of your hobby, of your favorite celebrities, of beautiful scenery,
etc., and enjoy them as well.

With an inexpensive superVGA card capable of displaying up to 16
million colors at high resolutions, pictures appear on your screen
at close to photo quality.

Or you can amuse your family and friends by using software to
doctor their photographs to add/remove hair, distort their
features, or just to create abstract art works of them.

In addition to Windows wallpaper, software in PsL's library lets
you use scanned photos (saved in BMP or PCX format) as screen
blankers. One interesting screen blanker rotates a "photo cube"
around the screen with pictures of your choosing on each side.

Low-cost color ink-jet printers, which are around in abundance,
make the ideal mate for the low-cost color scanner.

4. Although scanned documents cannot be loaded into a text editor as
text (because scanner output is graphical), Optical Character
Recognition software (which comes with some scanners or can be
purchased stand-alone) lets scanned documents from graphic format to
text, allowing you to enter them into your computer with just a
little touch-up typing.

5. Desktop publishing is another obvious use for a scanner. In
Windows, most graphics and DTP programs let you scan directly into
them for the easiest and most direct possible use.

Scanning software lets you specify types of output (screen, FAX,
laser, dot matrix printer, etc.) and formats the imported file
accordingly.

6. Other business uses include adding photos to personnel files (or
to any type of database using database software in PsL's library),
creating slide shows which intermix computer graphics and photos
for added interest and impact, making ID badges with pictures, and
so on.


Tips on Scanning & Retouching Photos

If you do not already use Windows, you will certainly want to use
it when scanning. There is simply no way to get the same degree of
functionality and ease of use in DOS.

In Windows, many graphics and DTP programs let you scan directly
into them. The popular shareware graphics program, Paint Shop Pro
("PSP") is one that does, and it is an essential tool for retouching
scanned photos.

Photos scanned on our system come out too dark and without enough
contrast. After some experimentation with PSP, we found that
increasing brightness by 20% and contrast by 40% improved most
photo scans to a nearly acceptable level of brightness and
contrast, but that colors still didn't match the original.

We then found that by increasing red by 10% and green by 10-20%, we
got a better color match, so our scanner must be adding too much
blue. Adding red and green also brightens the picture and increases
the contrast without making the darker areas darker, which is an
added benefit.

"Sharpen" adds detail to a picture and "blur" takes it away. The
cost of sharpening a picture is that EVERYTHING gets sharpened,
including the grain (texture) of the picture.

PSP Pro's & Con's:

PSP is designed to work on an entire graphic file at once. This is
both a strength and weakness. On the plus side, it is easier to crop
a graphic, and to sharpen, blur, adjust contrast, colors, etc. for
an entire picture at once.

On the minus side, PSP does not let you selectively adjust just one
part of a picture. For that purpose, we use Adobe Photoshop which
came with the scanner. With Photoshop, you can mark areas to be
operated on.

(PSP's publishers are promising this feature and more in the next
version.)

In addition to the normal types of adjustments mentioned above,
you can have fun with a photo by using the special effects
controls to creatively distort parts of a picture. You can also cut
and paste parts of pictures, including combining all or parts of
separate pictures, which PSP cannot do.

In fact, Photoshop is actually a paint program which allows you to
do complete pixel-level retouching of photos.

Converting to 256 Colors:

Both PSP and Photoshop require pictures to be in 16-million color
mode in order to use most special effects, and both will convert
pictures with lower color levels to that level and back, but PSP
offers many more options when converting color levels.

In PSP, experimentation showed that the best combination of options
to use in converting color photos from 16-million colors to 256
are Standard (rather than the more enticing-sounding "Optimized")
and Ordered Dither. The change in the graphic when using these
options was almost unnoticeable while Optimized