Scanning technology reaches a new level with new product

By Zatni Arbi

JAKARTA (JP): My HP ScanJet IIC has just celebrated its seventh year of existence. Still, it does not show its age very much, except the warming up phase seems to take longer now. It also stops working when it gets a little overheated. Honestly speaking, I no longer take a good care of this flatbed scanner, thinking its useful life is nearing an end. Somehow, it still persists.

Interestingly, I still use the original software driver and scanning program that were intended for the old good Windows 3.x, although my PC has been running on Windows 95 for some years. The driver and the DeskScan II program works well. I could have ordered the proper Windows 95 driver from Hewlett-Packard, but I never bothered. Once in a while the scanner refuses to work, but it turns out that the driver conflicts with other device drivers in my fully loaded Pentium 133 MHz PC. Usually, when I erase the entire hard disk and reinstall everything, the scanner behaves well once again.

The scanning process is very straightforward. I preview the image with one pass, and then I select a particular area inside the previewed image that I want to scan, and I click on the Final button to save it in an image file. Zooming takes another pass -- which means that the scanner head has to travel over the selected image one more time. Saving the file takes still another pass.

One of the latest scanners from HP, the ScanJet 5100C, has a smarter approach to scanning, and today we will have a look at how it does its job. It's actually the replacement of HP ScanJet 5p. Courtesy of Hewlett-Packard, I had the chance to use it for a couple of weeks to learn the new features.

At the moment, HP offers three types of flatbed scanners. The lower-end is this ScanJet 5100C, which is capable of 600 DPI (optical) and 1200 DPI (with the help of software). What this means is that, if we rely on the hardware only, we will get a scanned image at the resolution level of 600 dot per inch (DPI). Because we now have printers with much higher resolution, the 600 DPI level may not be adequate. We can use software to enhance the image and increase its resolution up to 1200 DPI. In the U.S., a ScanJet 5100C commands a price of US$299 from a mail order house, here it's about Rp 4 million.

The professional types, the ScanJet 6100C Series, can create scanned images with resolutions up to 600 DPI without any software enhancement. If we use the software tool, the maximum resolution is 2,400 DPI, which meets professional requirements. The price of a ScanJet 6100 in U.S. mail order catalogs is $799.

For all the features it has, I wouldn't call ScanJet 5100C a low-end scanner. It comes with PhotoDeluxe 2.0, a very user- friendly image enhancement program from Adobe, which is the de facto king of computer imaging programs. Other bundled software includes Adobe Type Manager, HP ScanJet Copy Utility, OmniPage Pro and PageKeeper. ScanJet 5100C also has a programmable button that, when pressed, can start the PrecisionScan program on your PC or do other things as programmed.

This scanner connects to the PC via the parallel port. Your printer can be attached to a pass-through connection at the back of the scanner. This connection makes the scanner so much easier to install, and you can -- like I did in my test drive -- even use it with a notebook.

One pass

It may seem to take a little longer when we first scan an image with 5100C. However, the interesting thing is, we need only one pass for each scanning job. If we want to zoom in, the program will use the image that is kept in the computer memory. The same thing happens when we save the scanned image. All in all, scanning with 5100C is certainly faster than with my ScanJet IIC.

However, it is what HP calls "Intelligent Scanning Technology" that really makes the 5100C shine. First, we can scan a page that contains various different elements, such as text, black and white logos, as well as colored pictures, and we will be able to recreate a page with all these elements automatically enhanced. The new technology, called dual image scanning, automatically analyzes the scanned page and divides it into zones. Each zone may contain various different types of elements, and each element will automatically improve. Using the bundled OmniPage Pro optical character recognition (OCR), the text image can even be automatically turned into editable text. All of this is achieved in only one single pass. Using ScanJet my IIC, I would need three scans and a lot more steps to get the same result.

Clearly, this scanner is an ideal tool for turning a printed page into a Web page. In fact, we can specify where the scanned file is going to be used so that the software can optimize it accordingly. If we need to scan a page and put it into a word document, the PrecisionScan scanning program can do it automatically, preserving text formatting and page layout in the process.

The software also has the intelligence to convert a logo into a vector-based object. The advantage is that the logo can then be resized infinitely without any quality degradation.

About the only complaint I have is that this scanner can only scan a letter-sized page (8.5" x 11"). My ScanJet IIC can scan up to legal size page (8.5" x 14"). However, for most uses, letter size is sufficient. If necessary, the scanner cover can be removed, enabling us to easily scan text or photos from a newspaper.

The unit that I tested came with a software driver and a scanning program for Windows 95. It did not work when I tested it on a friend's Presario that has been upgraded to Windows 98.

However, HP already provides drivers and software for those who have Windows 98 on their machines. The good thing is, HP even has Windows 98 software driver and programs for old scanners, including the ScanJet IIC that I have. They cost $19.95 each and can be ordered through local HP dealers.

Even at about Rp 4 million, it is a great scanner that comes with a lot of good things. The bundled PhotoDeluxe, for example, is definitely not a shareware-class program. The scan result is also excellent. While it's undoubtedly a great scanner if you want to quickly publish your printed pages on the Web, it's a great scanner for other purposes, too.