Import real drawings: how?

Hey folks,

There are times when I want to quickly sketch something so that I can send an image file to someone for their review. When I say "sketch", I mean the traditional sense: pencil (or pen) and paper. I say this because I expect that using a tablet takes some getting used to (e.g. you draw on the tablet but see the results on screen); I should point out I have no experience whatsoever using a tablet.

I'd like the ability to take the imported image and then modify it later (e.g. to apply fills, different brush strokes, shadows, etc.)

What are the import capabilities of Xara X(1/treme)? Can it import directly from a scanner? Will it convert drawn lines into xara lines? I realise that it's feasible to create a new layer and manually trace over the top, but this sounds like a lot of effort.

I am sure folks here have lots of experience with tablets or scanners... I am looking for something portable (to slip into case next to notebook PC), and something that doesn't cost the earth (£50 to £100?). Any recommendations?

tia

Importing direct from a scanner uses the TWAIN interface between the scanner's software and the graphics software. Xara doesn't support that, but it doesn't need to - your scanner will come with its own software which you can 'Scan to file' so that you can save your scans to files and then import them into Xara.

Depends what you're scanning, I'd typically stick to 300dpi B&W TIFF files for lineart, or 300dpi JPEGs for photographic stuff. Once imported into Xara (no problems there with any of the scanner's format - just don't "save as a PDF") you can use the bitmap tracer in combination with your own redrawing.

A Canon Lide 25 scanner is supreme value at £33 inc VAT, it is barely bigger than a sheet of A4 and is less than an inch thick: it'll slip into your laptop case no problem, and is entirely USB powered. The Lide 60 is £15 more and supports USB 2.

I'm no quality graphics buff, I usually scan for onscreen/web use only, but I've spent £300 and £30 on scanners before now and there's been little between them physically, the interface on the software the scanner uses is more of an influence on which I use than the quality because they all work well.

Note that when you scan the sketch, you'll get a bitmap of the image. You will then need to trace it or redraw it to make the kinds of modifications you're talking about. You'll need a vector file for that.

With what has been suggested, you might want to look at Guest Tutorial 53 and Guest Tutorial 49 both of which deal with creating vector objects from scanned images.

Gary

Thanks for the help, all very useful.

How do they sell things that cheap?! (aside: I bought my parents a DVD player from Amazon for £20, and (so far) I can't fault it!)

Are there more portable scanners that are good? I've seen a couple from a quick seach, but has anyone had experience of them? Is a flat-bed scanner going to be orders of magnitude better than a small device that rolls a sheet through?

That's a blast from the past, I've probably not seen a handheld scanner for 10 years! Xara's sister company Computer Concepts lists them on their old website at http://www.cconcepts.co.uk/products/scanl256.htm but other than that I didn't even know they still sold them!

I used to have a Logitech handheld scanner, I don't think it was as sophisticated as the CC model, it didn't have an audio warning that you were moving too fast - it just had a red or green LED.

I don't have a Canon Lide myself but have installed half a dozen for customers and they are very happy with them. I've not seen any other scanners either so cheap, thin, or USB-only powered. Canon seem pretty good at portable computing, they've always had portable bubblejet printers too.

The USB-powered feature is definitely something worth its weight in gold - or should that be worth the weight it saves?!

I think I might pop down to PC World sometime over the weekend and see what they are like up close and personal.

Thanks for all the help.