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 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Scanning with the Umax PowerLook Scanner

Felix Wong & Jo Wozniak

VMIL Consultants

The Umax PowerLook flatbed scanner is a 2400dpi, 24-bit color scanner. It can scan images up to 11"x17" in size, either paper or transparency. It can also scan images from slides or film, either positive or negative.

Scanning with the Umax MagicScan v3.02 Plug-in

  1. Start Adobe Photoshop.
  2. From the File menu, select Import->Umax MagicScan 3.02. This will start the Umax scanner plug-in.
  3. After a few moments, the following screens should appear:
    • The larger window is the scanning area and
    • the smaller window is the image control area
      • The thicker Red Line surrounding the image is the full size bed area. It should encompass the entire flatbed surface. The flashing dotted line is the immediate scanning area. If the image you are scanning is smaller than the entire flatbed area, this is the line you adjust to eliminate any unnecessary scanning area.
  4. Click on the preview button (It is suggested that you prescan the image in order to find out the final area necessary for scanning.)
  5. Adjust the dotted black line to fit your image or whatever area you want the final scan to encompass.
  6. Adjust the scan settings, color, resolution and other options as necessary.
  7. Click on the scan button.
  8. Upon finishing the scan, Photoshop closes the Umax scanner interface and brings the image into the program for further manipulation. To scan another image, you will need to repeat the procedure.

Scanning Panel Option Buttons

  1. On the right hand side of the image control area is a series of features and options are given as pull down menus:

    The scan mode defines the material you are scanning.

    • (Flatbed)Reflective should be picked for any regular scan including pictures or books.
    • (UTA)Transmissive should be selected for any kind of transparencies or slides.
    • (UTA)Negative should be chosen for negative scanning or any other media type that consists of inverse colors.
  2. The color options let you select in which color mode your final scan will be.
    • RGB colors are additive with the primary colors being red, blue and green.
    • CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow combine to produce black (K))colors are subtractive or absorbing colors.
    • Grayscale mode uses up to 256 shades of gray to represent an image.
    • Lineart is for strict black and white scanning.
    • The Options let you designate if you want to use 256 colors and whether you want grayscale or lineart depicted in strictly R, G, or B colors if not black and white or variations thereof.
    • For most applications, one would typically use RGB color or Greyscale
  3. The resolution options determine the amount of information the scanner will capture. The higher the resolution the less pixilated the image will look under magnification. (72 dpi is standard for web publishing)
    • Resolution can be measured in dpi (dots per inch) or lpi (lines per inch).
    • Printer as final output:
      • The phaser450 a 300dpi printer while the black and white laser accepts 600dpi.
    • If you want to enlarge the image after scanning, you should scan it at a higher dpi in order to retain a good resolution after enlargement.
  4. The Sizing option lets you set the enlargement or reduction you want to perform on the original image. Default is set at 100%.
  5. The Filter option softens or sharpens image boundaries
  6. These options can also be performed through Photoshop once the image is scanned.
    • Sharpen increases the contrast between the different pixels making up the boundary.
    • Sharpen more increases the sharpening effect.
    • Blur smooths out the effects of contrasting pixels on image boundaries.
    • Blur More further smooths out the image boundaries. This tool is stronger than the regular Blur option.
  7. The Descreen option can be used to minimize the appearance of interference patterns (usually caused by documents created by a halftone process).
  8. Magic Match is used for color matching and calibration. The scanner will match the colors of the image to what it believes are of the correct calibration.
  9. The Highlight, Shadow and Gamma options let you control the highlighting, shadow and gamma levels. These controls work in unison with the Highlight and Shadow buttons on the preview image panel.

    DO NOT ATTEMPT TO MOVE THE SLIDER BARS! ADJUST THE VALUES IN THE BOXES TO THE RIGHT.

    When you change the value of the highlight tool this will set the highlight level equal to the brightness level chosen. The preview will refresh automatically. Changing the value of the shadow tool will make the overall shadow level be set equal to the value chosen. Gamma is the midtone selection tool. It affects the tone values of the scanned images. A target gamma of 1.8 is recommended for printing CMYK images (closely matches printer dot grain) and a target gamma of 2.2 is recommended for images intended for video (2.2 is the typical gamma of most TV sets).

  10. The M, R, G, B buttons near the bottom of the control panel are the channel selectors. These allow you to adjust all (M - master channel) or one of the primary colors that compose the image.

Preview Panel Option Buttons

If you need more explanation than is provided here, once you have the two above windows open, go to the pull down menu Info->Help and choose the tool you need more help on.

This is the Frame Tool button. It defines the final scan area and is usually the default button selected. To resize the dotted line this button needs to be selected. To change the size or shape of the defined area move the cursor over the preview area. Drag on either the boxes on the sides or corners of the area to resize the final scanning area. Holding down the Shift key moves the entire frame while maintaining the aspect ratio.
This is the Add Frame tool. When this is selected you can add another final scan area in addition to the previous one(s) without eliminating the previously defined scanning areas. This tool is helpful when you want to capture several areas of a bigger image into separate files.
This is the Hand tool. It allows you to scroll through the image on the preview screen if the full image is too big to be seen all at once.
This is the magnification tool. Select this tool and click on the image to zoom in on a particular area of the image. Holding down Option while clicking on the image reduces the size of the image.
These two buttons are the Highlight and Shadow tools, respectively. They work in unison with the Highlight and Shadow buttons on the Scanning Panel. When you select the highlight tool, click on the area of the preview. This will set the highlight level equal to the brightness level of the particular pixel that was clicked on. The preview will refresh automatically. Selecting the shadow tool and selecting on a part of the preview image will make the overall shadow level be set equal to the shadow level of the particular pixel selected.

Image Enhancement Tools

This is the Level Adjustment tool. This tool allows you to change the relative shades and highlights of an image. The histogram shows the amount of shadows and highlights you have relative to the whole image. The shadow point shows the darkest value while the highlight point displays the brightest value. The Triangular pointer depicts the gamma setting.
This is the Tonal Map tool. It is another way to adjust the highlight, gamma or shadows. The diagonal straight line is the default setting. Altering the shape of this diagonal line can brighten and/or darken the image. For example, to mmake the brights brighter and the darks darker, shape the line to look like an "s".
This is the Color Balance tool. It allows you to change the mixture of the colors in the image. With this tool you can emphasize certain colors and/or diminish others.
This is the Color Adjustment tool. Selecting this tool allows you to control the distribution of colors my means of saturation or dilution of a particular color.
These are the Flip/Rotate and Invert tools, respectively. Use these tools to rotate the image or invert the color scheme of the image.

Three buttons on the bottom remain constant throughout the four Image Enhancement Tools. These are the Histogram, Revert, and Reset buttons.

Histogram shows you in overall values the amount of each value you have on the image: the amount of white, black or any color amount.

Revert resets the image to the previously set values.

Reset resets the image to the default values.

Imaging Technology Group
Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
405 N. Mathews, Urbana, IL 61801

Date Issued: 3 December 1997

Copyright © 1997, Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois, All Rights Reserved.

The ITG is part of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois.
Beckman Institute

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Copyright 2005. All rights reserved. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
The Imaging Technology Group
405 North Mathews, Urbana IL 61801 USA
Phone: 217.244.0170    FAX: 217.244.6219    Email:  I T G