[Arithmomaniac]

I have a LIDE 60 scanner. Is there a program compatible with my driver that would let me turn all scan or convert full-color results into 4-6 colors? Say, black, white, light blue, dark blue, gray, and red. I am trying to compress work I have done, keep the teacher's marks in a different color, and not take 200KB a page because it measures the faint gray smudges on my paper.

Thanks,
Arithmomaniac

[Knotbored]

What software do ypu have available ?
Look for a function "POSTERIZE" and pick a low number like "2 bits" (Its probably menu EFFECTS/POSTERIZE)
That will convert a photo into something like a paint-by-number picture, but the colors might be way off from the original (blue might become briight orange.)

[hewee]

Most any image program let you change the image format so you can convert to another format.
Then like Knotbored said colors can and will change from 24 bit high color when you go to 256 colors or 16 colors.

What image program's do you have?

[Arithmomaniac]

I use Paint.net, but will use any program that will let me do it. My scanner driver's built-in software only goes down to 8-bit color and does not let me turn all the text black (It colors the edges, like paint).

[hewee]

I don't have or can I use Paint.net on my 98 PC so do not know how it works.
Read the help on convert, format and see what it says.

[Knotbored]

If you are just trying to make the file size smaller, then in try this:
Make a copy of one of your problem scanned pictures.
In PAINT bring picture to your screen (the copy).
In PAINT FILE/SAVE-AS/MORE/(pull the bar way to the left-about 20% from the left end)
SAVE
Look at the size of that copy compared to the original-It will probably still be plenty clear but will be about 15K compared to 200K original
(the copy will retain the colors)

(The attachment example is a compressed collage of many photo's and is about 44K)

[Arithmomaniac]

I was really looking for another program that had these converting capabilities automatically, preferably by letting me enter target color codes; Paint.net is not meant to do that (I checked).

[Arithmomaniac]

bump

[erick295]

Just save it as a GIF or an 8-bit PNG and set the number of colors as low as possible while still maintaining the information you want to keep. You need to do it while you're saving, not scanning. Scan it at the highest quality possible and use an image editor to optimize them later. JPEG is a very poor format for saving any kind of documents unless there are photos or a lot of colors in them. Don't use it. And posterizing or anything else is definitely not going to help you here, don't do anything like that.

I always use ImageReady for things like this, but IrfanView should work just as well (and it lets you do this to many images at the same time, like you said you wanted to do).

EDIT: By the way, if you want to save it in a lossless format, like a BMP or a 24-bit PNG, you can just put the images in a ZIP file and they will compress quite a bit without losing any quality. They're harder to view later, though.