James,
Not having seen your scans, or the original pages, I can only guess if my
suggestion will be helpful. For sure 300 dpi in 2 colours is the best for
OCR work but you require a graphic file that is readable. You will know it
when you see it - I cannot comment. However putting a black (or suitable
dark colour) sheet of paper behind the page you are going to scan will allow
you to manipulate the scanner settings to get a better contrast between the
ink on the scan side and any background which may interfere otherwise. I use
this technique a lot for scanning old newsprint articles for example.

Tweaking the scanner controls then allows a good black for print with the
murky grey background 'tuned out' as white. Some variation on this will help
you with your work I hope. I have found that this helps get a better
background not only for OCR work, but for making a graphic of such a page
also.
Phil.
----- Original Message -----
From: "James McAlister" <forums01@james-mc.com>
To: "Acrobat Talk" <acrobat@lists.lassosoft.com>
Sent: Sunday, May 20, 2007 08:33
Subject: Trying to get a better B&W scan


I'm scanning some old diaries originally written in pen (usually blue
or black), and some of pages are dim. I'm scanning in B&W (300 DPI and
a "medium" Quality setting), and the resultant file size is about
45K. But the scan doesn't pick up enough detail for the dim pages to
be legible. Increasing the Quality setting the the highest value helps
slightly. The darker pages come out OK on B&W.

On the other hand, switching to grayscale (300 DPI and medium quality)
gives a much more readable scan but larger file size (about 160K).

I pretty much a novice at scanning and was wondering if there are
other settings I can use to improve my B&W results in order to keep
the smaller file sizes. If not, the grayscale will work but my files
will be quite a bit larger.

I'd appreciate any suggestions.

--
James McAlister
www.james-mc.com
www.BulletinInserts.org
(Windows XP Pro & Acrobat Pro 8)

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