Boost Your Scanning Skills  With prices that seem to drop every
day, chances are that if you don't already own a scanner, you
are in the market for one. Good news: You can purchase a basic
flatbed scanner for well under $100. $200 to $300 will buy you
high-powered hardware and full-featured software from well-known
manufacturers like Epson, Hewlett-Packard, and Microtek.  The
heart of a scanner is the CCD (charge-coupled device)—the
electronic sensor that converts analog artwork into digital
images. The best of the new scanners are built around CCDs that
have optical resolutions of 1,200 or 2,400 dots per inch (dpi)
and can capture 42 or 48 bits of data for each dot (pixel).
These CCDs can perceive fine detail and the widest possible
range of gray tones and color values. Scanners that capture 36,
42, or 48 bits of data per pixel actually produce much more
color information than is needed by image editing programs,
which typically handle only 8-bit gray-scale images and 24-bit
color images. In fact, the scann