How Do Scanners Work?

Uses of Scanners

It's hard to find a good office environment that doesn't have at least one digital scanner. With the amount of digital transmissions and computer work we do in our everyday lives, it just makes sense to have a product that can take hard copies and turn them into digital files. It saves time, cuts down on paper waste and has revolutionized the way we share photos and documents.

Scanning in a Nutshell

The most prevalent version of the scanner is the flatbed variety. This device lies flat on the desk and opens from the top, much like a copy machine. You place the document or photograph on the bed, close the top and scan it into the computer. But what's happening when you press that button? Well, the scanner is working to create a digital code out of the analog image it is presented with. Each scanner is equipped with a piece of software called optical character recognition. It can manipulate the images it sees from their analog form into the digital form that can then be sent and read by the computer.

The Inner Workings of the Scanner's Photography

A flatbed scanner has a powerful light source beneath the bed of the scanner, much like what one would find on a copy machine. Once you hit the "scan" button, this light source heats up and the scanner is able to differentiate between the light and dark areas, creating a duplicate of the picture in its memory. Depending on whether you have a color scanner or a black and white scanner, this process is done through a series of red, blue and green pixels, or through a single lens that can read a spectrum of black to white. This digital information is then sent to the computer, where it can be used as any other digital piece of information. Just like that, you have a digital rendering of an analog source.