Handheld scanners were introduced to the home user first ,these worked o.k. but they had some limitations The trouble was that a whole page could not be scanned in one go and software was required to stitch up full pages of picture's or text. Also getting a straight scan meant having a very steady hand indeed.
. I am glad technology has moved on .Hand held scanners have become un-popular due to the cheapness of flat-bed scanner's and there easy of use.
some of the first flat bed scanner's for home user's were very expensive up to £1000 compared to £100 pound or less price you can now get a scanner for .
Most people have scanners now because they were enticed into buying a Pc which had a scanner included as a package deal with it or you have brought a combo printer that includes scanner and fax machine.
Other people have simply brought one due to the now low cost.
Generally there are three common ways of connecting them to a pc and I class them as follows:
Most picture editing software these days support most scanners by the use of TWAIN drivers so additional scanner software is not normally necessary.
WARNING !!
Picture's saved to hard disk drives can take up a lot of precious hard disk space. Consider backing them up with cd-writer or DVD writer's to DVD's & cd's.
I predict if it is technically possible ,I expect to see USB2 Scanners and Firewire Scanner's soon.!! .
The picture quality obtained from flat-bed scanner's is now amazing.
So enjoy your Scanning!!
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Revised: January 31, 2010