This question has led to an interesting and informative discussion, and
I've enjoyed reading submissions from a number of knowledgeable people who
do this kind of activity all the time. I just want to add one small point
on a topic that is a pet peeve of mine (Hi Steve!). I believe someone
earlier was bemoaning the impact on RAM and hard disk space of scanning at
high (ca. 600dpi) resolutions. That should almost never be a
consideration. To do this kind of activity at all means spending a few
thousand dollars (at least) on equipment, so why skimp on RAM? RAM runs
about $2-3/MB these days, so for $1,000 or so you can have a machine with
half a gigabyte of RAM. Hard drive storage is ridiculously cheap. So if
your scanning resolution requires more RAM and disk storage -- BUY MORE. I
have 256MB RAM on my personal desktop machine, and barely scrape by with
82 MB RAM on my home machine (upgrade to happen soon). For the average
situation, the single most effective PC dollar is the one spent on RAM. Do
the math.
Roy Tennant
UC Berkeley Library
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