There are establishments that undertake both printing as well as scanning. Scanning means professionally processing the pictures you have included in your layout for printing. Scanning for professional printing is done at high resolutions of 1500 dpi or more. This ensures that the pictures are printed life-like and of high quality.

Before you even approach a printing or scanning service you need to know clearly what are known as the specifications of your job. These include: how many black and white images, how many color images, if color, what level of quality, the size of pictures, bleeds, registration, and so on.

If you provide all the required information along with printing specifications, the printing and scanning service will be able to give you an estimate. This will be the basic cost of the project; the final bill will be based on actual costs incurred. Scanning is charged on a per cm basis, and rescanning or too many corrections are always billed.

There are many kinds of scanners in use: slide scanners which scan transparencies, flatbed scanners which scan anything but have resolutions of 300-400 dpi, drum scanners which are professional scanning devices and do high end scans of 1500 dpi, and more.

Scanning has now become hi-tech and progressed beyond being a pre-press process. Many printing and scan services undertake digitizing of archival documents. Magazines, books, photographs, architectural plans, ledgers, invoices, legal documents, as antique prints and historical documents can be preserved for posterity by scanning. There are three viable options: bi-tonal, used for printed books with line engravings and black and white illustrations; grayscale for hand-written documents, lithographs, and photographs; and color scanning for documents, books, and photographs in four colors. These can then be stored for posterity as microfilm, computer disks, or digital prints.

Once you have identified at least three printing and scanning services, visit each outfit and met the personnel, ask to be shown around their premises, find out what kind of processes they use, see proofs of jobs undertaken by them, and ask for referrals. Be sure to find out how dependable each one is, and whether their rates are competitive.

To get the best service you will need to establish a friendly working relationship with the printing and scanning service and be professional on all counts" ?ensure all instructions are clear and all submissions are made according to specifications.