{1}Image technology has come a long way since the days when the inclusion of a clip-art image in your company presentation was sufficient to get you labelled as one of those 'creative types'. Nowadays even watching a snail transforming effortlessly into a frog on your TV screen is unlikely to cause your jaw to fall wide open.
The image industry itself has been taken aback at the concurrent rapid developments in image-manipulation, image-capturing devices, file compression techniques, storage media and communications. Image technology has even fired the imagination of hitherto traditional illustrators and photographers - with the legendary David Bailey recently making his first foray into the world of digital photography.
It doesn't look as though the pace of progress is slowing down - the technology is already in place to allow for the production of systems which relay and receive video telephone messages via your computer - providing facilities for such applications as video tele-conferences, remote job interviews by selection panel, international training seminars or multiple opinions from medical experts around the world as a remote surgical procedure is actually taking place.
{2}This may all seem like rather a leap from desktop scanning, but in terms of the technologies involved, it is only a footstep away. This booklet is designed to arm you with enough information to help you understand both the basic principles of operation and the potential of desktop scanning and related technologies. It explores the many ways of acquiring, manipulating, using and storing images as a means of increasing productivity and creativity in the workplace. Whether you are loading a logo into a letterhead, storing the photo of a member of staff into a personnel database, making your own electronic collage or creating your own image library - we hope that this guide will help you make the most of what is already available and provide a flavour of what is to come.
