Optimise scanned image for printing

[Stealth]

Hello,
I'm looking for advice on a simple piece of software to optimise an image for printing ... the situation is this:

Users print large (A1) drawings of construction plans from PDF and then annotate, highlight and generally go wild with edits on paper then scan them again using an A1 scanner .... this leaves the image with a dull background that just wastes ink and takes longer to print out again because of the excess dull colour over the white paper.

Any ideas? something simple will be best for these people!

[Whatever]

What about reducing the contrast when scanning/printing?

[Chris H]

If it's just plans then scan in as a black and white indexed image, not greyscale. Or just post process with gimp or summat like that.

[Stealth]

I'll give it a go.

For a £3k scanner I was hoping for better software :S

[robwhizz]

What of kind of software do you have with the scanner?

Most image editing software will have some kind of levels adjustment where you can set the white point. Often you can click the white dropper, then click on a part of the image that should be pure white and it'll adjust the levels/clipping so that white is white.

Do you pre-scan, or is it automatic or batch? Sounds like it's just scanning with default settings. If there is an auto levels/auto adjust type setting then (for £3K) it should be able to set the paper as white. Are you printing to bright white stock, or is it a bit grey? Is there anything in the scan that's whiter than the paper and causing an auto adjust to go wonky? If you print to the same stock and the additions are similar each time - ie the contrast range is very similar for each re-scan, then you may be able to set up a new profile in the scanning settings to use each time it scans your drawings.

One last thing, could you get these people to make edits directly on the pdf rather than printing and rescanning?

[Stealth]

Hi Rob,
The software has no options apart from the resolution and contrast 1 to 5. Its quite poor really. No settings for colour/greyscale!
The paper is bright white stock. This is the manufacturer software for scanning over a network, i'll probably need to set up a PC and use some proper software but it has to be user-friendly! I cant think of any software to use.

The paper is white but ends up with some pencil smudges. The pages are A1 and the quantity surveyors have been editing the PDF's on--screen but I can see it was a pain in the bum .... they're used to working 3 or 4 round a table with printed drawings so the scanner became necessary.

 

[robwhizz]

If you've got Photoshop (something around CS or later I think) on any machine, then you can create an action (auto levels will probably do it) and apply it to a folder.

Gimp will work too as per Chris's advice (not sure if it's got baulk editing. Probably has.)

If all the images are consistent, then you could look at Irfanview. It's a image viewer with basic editing tools. It'll do batch edits but I don't think it has an auto levels type adjustment. If each image is consistent though, so can set a value and the batch tools can then fiddle with the brightness or gamma and apply the same to each image in a folder.

Photy or Gimp will give most control, but Irfanview is excellent for quick and easy edits.