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Power to the Peripherals

Get the inside scoop on your discs: Do no-name CD-R discs really record data at 16X? And how fast can your drive write to CD-RW discs? Two free tools will tell all. Nero's InfoTool details write speeds, supported formats, and other information for every CD or DVD drive in your system, as well as for the media in those drives. CDR Identifier goes even further, unearthing the disc manufacturer, dye type, media type, maximum capacity, recording speed, and other disc details. Visit Downloads for May's "Cheap Tweaks" to download either program.

Turn your scanner into a photocopier: Unlock the photocopier trapped inside your scanner with Nico Cuppen's free Photocopier 2.26 utility. Just slap an item on the scanner and select the relevant specs: type of scan (black-and-white, gray-scale, or color); magnification (100 percent or 70 percent); darkness level; and number of copies. Then click Copy, and they roll right out of your printer. Upgrade to the $18 Photocopier Pro to run copies by pressing your scanner's copy button. The Pro version also lets you preview scans, wield editing and manipulation tools, and save copies to disk in various formats. Download Photocopier 2.26 and a trial version of Photocopier Pro. Bonus tip: Scanning a newspaper article? To avoid scanning the stuff on the other side of the clipping, place a piece of black paper behind the item you're scanning.

Scan it high, and then boil it down: When you scan at a high resolution, the larger file's extra data protects against image degradation that may occur during editing of the file, by giving you wiggle room. If your scanning software permits, scan in high-bit mode (12 or 16 bits per channel). The resulting file is bigger than if you used a lower bit rate, but you can probably slim it down in your image editing program. When you're happy with the result, convert the picture to 8-bit color.

Get more from your JPEGs: If speed be your muse, save your camera images as JPEG files. For everyday shots, medium resolution (1024 by 768) is sufficient for great-looking 5-by-7 prints. For nature pix, increase the JPEG resolution or save the shots as TIFF files. When you edit a JPEG, note its compression ratio and save it at that value. If you increase the compression ratio, the image quality will degrade. You'll do better to save edited JPEGs as bigger--and slower--TIFFs.

Stream tunes from your stereo to your PC: Don't start using your old LPs as placemats just yet. To MP3 'em, you need just a sound card, a cable with a stereo minijack on one end and a pair of RCA plugs on the other, and a program--such as CFB Software's $30 LP Recorder 5--that captures analog audio ( download a trial version).

Plug the cable's RCA jacks into the left and right audio outputs on your stereo, and put the 0.125-inch plug into your sound card's line-in port. Fire up the capture program, turn on your stereo, place an LP on the turntable (the setup works with audio cassettes as well), and start recording. Before you know it you'll have converted your analog music library into a folder full of MP3s on your PC.

That's a moiré: When you scan images from magazines and newspapers, they often look as if they've been captured through a chain-link fence--this is called a moiré pattern. To remove moiré, try rotating the image slightly. If that doesn't help, increase the scan resolution by as much as 50 percent. If your scanning software has a descreen feature, use it. If none of these methods work, open the image in your image editor and look for a "despeckle" or "Gaussian blur" option. In Adobe's Photoshop, for example, choose Filter, Noise, Despeckle (which automatically smooths the image) or select Filter, Blur, Gaussian Blur, a similar tool that provides more-precise control. Another option in Photoshop is to select Filter, Sharpen, Unsharp Mask and then play with the sliders until you get the desired effect.

Burn faster, cheaper, and safer: Burning CD-Rs from disc to disc is slow and fraught with peril. A better way is to save an image of what you're burning to your hard disk, shut down all other active programs on your PC, and then burn the image to CD-R. You save time in the long run, and you avoid the dreaded buffer underrun error. Bonus tip: Got a fast burner? You may not have to buy top-speed media. For example, 40X media can burn at 48X or even 52X in many cases. Experiment with media recommended by your drive's manufacturer--you could save bucks and still burn to the max.

Save a buck, save the planet: A hundred smackers for a laser-printer toner cartridge? Just say no! Buy a remanufactured cartridge instead, and save half the cost, or more. They're sold everywhere: online, at superstores, in subways. Just remember to purchase remanufactured cartridges--units that have been disassembled and cleaned, have had their worn parts replaced, and have then been retested. Avoid companies that "drill and fill" used cartridges; these can leak toner and ruin your hardware. When in doubt, ask the company about its products.

Save a buck, save a tree: Paper doesn't grow on trees, you know. Oh, wait--it does. But it's still expensive. One way to help preserve our nation's natural resources when you print photos is to use Veena Jayaram's $20 Photo Paper Saver utility. The program lets you pick the photos you want to print and the size of each print (it warns you if there are too many for a single page). It even arranges the layout of photos on each page to maximize use and minimize waste of that pricey photo stock. Stop by Veena Jayaram's download page to get your copy.

Clean up your video screen grabs: Grabbing a frame from a DVD movie playing on your PC can be ugly. Screens captured from a DVD viewing program such as CyberLink's PowerDVD look terrible when pasted into an image editing program because you capture an interlaced video frame--the two interposed scan lines that make up the video image. Look for a de-interlace option in your image editor. In Adobe's Photoshop 7, for example, select Filter, Video, De-Interlace, choose Odd or Even Fields, select the Interpolation option, and click OK.

Happiness is a warm scanner: Before you use a flatbed scanner, wipe the device's platen with regular window cleaner or a vendor-recommended glass-cleaning solution. Then let the scanner warm up for at least 15 minutes. Scans made before the scanner's bulb reaches its normal temperature may look fuzzy.

Shoot in any season: When it comes to cameras, "digital" and "rugged" aren't synonymous. At temperatures above 90o Fahrenheit, digital noise will show up in dark shots. So get a shade for your camera. Shooting in misty weather? Put your camera in a Ziploc bag that has a hole in it for the lens to poke out of.

Diagnose your fuzzy scans: Is your scanner output spotty? Digiversity.tv site manager Russell Viers suggests a test: Write the word TOP in big black letters on an 8-by-11-inch sheet of white paper and scan the page. (Any resolution will do--72 dpi is fast.) Open the scan in your image editor and find an equalize option to adjust the image contrast so you can identify problems. If you see a wavy black line along the paper's edge, the scanner lid may be leaking light. If you see spots, the scanner may need a new bulb, or you may need a new scanner. Can't afford either? If spots are confined to one area, you can avoid that location when positioning originals for scanning.

Beware the dark--and bright--side: Want your scanned images to stay sharp? Don't fiddle with the brightness or contrast controls in your scanning or image editing software. Adjusting them changes every pixel in the image by the same value, muddying dark areas of the shot and washing out bright ones. The trick is to master nonlinear correction, such as with the Levels and Curves tools in Adobe's Photoshop. Visit the Adobe insider's site at RussellBrown.com for more on this and other Photoshop verities.

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