There are different types of scanners. A flatbed scanner is used to convert any printed or reasonably flat material, such as photographs, into digital image. A document scanner is used to create digital records of a range of documents, especially for paper office documents. The film scanner enables you to scan film.

Canon CanoScan 8400F is a flatbed scanner with 3,200 dots per inch (dpi) optical resolution. It has four buttons located on front part that automates some scanning function. The connection is via USB 2.0. It scans an actual area of 8.5 inch by 11.2 inch. Its transparency adaptor can scan one strip of medium-format film. It offers two modes, simple and advanced. Of course, advanced mode produces better scan. For $150 you get a very quiet scanner. However, it does not have ability to reproduce a long tonal scale and it only works with Windows XP.

Shadows add facet and meaning to an image. Without shadows object may appear plain and boring. Lights and shadows establish correlation of one object to another and their place in full scene. The position and strength of lights and shadows also set general mood of subject.

It is engrossing to play with lights because you can do amazing things to your subject just by manipulating it. The sun is inviting and objects are responding. The latter casts bright and translucent blaze that overly saturates colors of scene making sharp shadows. Artificial light also exudes brightness that illuminates a scene from different perspectives. It allows innumerable shadows that collide and contends for prominence. Artificial light comes in a wide array of colors. Colored shadows are then created by colored light sources.

With help of Photoshop, object is vested an illusion that it has a third dimension. Photoshop’s files are configurations of pixels that are put across width and down height of an image. Third dimension’s illusion is created through use of accurate shading and perspective.