Scanning and Cropping in PSP

Scanning images can present a problem if your scanning interface is difficult to use, as many of them are. It is possible to scan them directly into PaintShop Pro and manipulate them there (It also saves the hastle of scanning, saving, starting PSP, loading and THEN manipulating)

1. Open PaintShop Pro and from the File menu select Import, then TWAIN and finally click on Acquire (as shown below)

2. The scanner interface will then appear (It will probably be similar to below, but it is dependant on your scanner make and model) and perform a pre-scan.
Using the Left mouse button, drag a box around the area you wish to scan, Making sure it is larger than the bit of the image you want. Then press Final (or Scan on many other scanner models)

3. The portion of the image you selected will appear on on the page, close the scan window by pressing the'X' button

(Note - I have experienced problems doing multiple scans from the same scanner interface, it may just be my scanner or computer but I am unable to scan more than one image per session so it may be neccecary to close the interface and re-select Acquire for each scan)

4. Select the crop tool and drag a box around the area you wish to keep. You can zoom in using the magnify tool (which looks like a magnifying glass) if you wish to expand the picture for more precice cropping

5. Once you are happy with the area you have selected press the Crop Image button on the Tool Options Pallete (if you cannot see the Tool Options Pallete click on View > Toolbars and select the Tool Options Pallete to make it visible) and the image will be cropped to the size yo want

Now you can do what you like with the image. You can manipulate it further or simply save it (I would suggest saving your images in .JPG for photos and .PNG for drawings if you wish to share them with others)

PSP IS overkill for this kind of work but this exercise gets you used to using PSP as well as helping you avoid the limitations of your scanner software (the one shown above will only save scans as .TIFs which are too large to send by email - well you can send your friends 4MB+ attachments but they won't remain your friends long. A 200K .JPEG file is far more suitable.)