If you are like me, you are always looking for a way to make your pennies stretch until that rainbow's end shows up. Now I've thought about the lottery, but I'm just not lucky and I could go out and find a 9-5 job, but the effects on your Social Security make working a hard pill to swallow, so stretching a penny is about the only way to make ends meet.
That means taking advantage of every resource you can find, like coupons, discounts and thrift stores.
Thrift stores...I lov'em. You can find the most wonderful stuff there that someone else thoughtlessly tossed out and most of the time it is as good as new. Even if it isn't it comes so cheap you can toss it out.
You can get all sorts of things an artist needs, like props for still life, lighting for mood, unusual pots, pans and glassware for just the right touch in your next masterpiece. You can even find discarded computer equipment.
You know me, I am a computer tinker of the worst sort, taking things apart to see what makes them tick and then putting them back together so that I can use them for some dastardly purpose which we won't mention.
That's the lovely thing about electronics, if they work, they work. Just because someone has come up with a new and shiny gizmo, the old one doesn't have to head for the scrap heap, it probably can go on to lead a full and happy life in your house and save you a bunch of bucks at the same time.
I was reminded of this when a pal of mine couldn't send me some vintage pictures this week because the negative scanner had failed the Windows 7 compatibility test and the originals had to be taken to a professional.
Broken scanners are a passion of mine. They are really very simple machines and unless you drop them in water while they are plugged in they are hard to hurt. Sure they won't always co-operate, but that's usually because you've done something wrong.
I did some looking about on the net and after a bit of digging I found the correct drivers, (That's computer speak for the little bit of funny code that tells the computer to make the scanner work.), and passed the information along. And in the process I found out a strange and wonderful thing. Faststone Image Viewer has a direct scanner function embedded in the program which will do the job as well if not better than the drivers you searched for or loaded from the disc which came from the maker which you lost five years ago and worry that if you buy one on Ebay it will have a virus on it and crash your computer and make you pay the Computer-Jedi hundreds of dollars to get your machine back.
Yes, the same Faststone Image Viewer that I have urged you to download because it is wonderful and free, yes, I did say free and you should do it right now because even if you don't want to use a scanner it is great for most quick image handling.
http://www.faststone.org/
You just open Faststone like you normally would, select file, scan board and click. The scan starts immediately and when it is finished if you like the result click okay and the deed is done. You'll have to double click on the image in the preview window so that you can save it, but that's not too hard even for artists.
It even works with scanners which have a troubled history. I have an Epson Perfection 1250 which has been limping along on Windows generic drivers for a coupla year on account of the Epson drivers never would load correctly. Now, Fastone bypassed the generic drivers and gets the Epson drivers to work and my scanner is working like a brand new buggy. Not bad for ten bucks at Goodwill, the scanner, the Fastone app is free.
So if you haven't downloaded Faststone Image Viewer like I have begged you to do here is another reason, it makes using your new scanner a delight and if you want to try for a Goodwill special hook it up and take a chance.
And guys, it is free. That's stretching a penny.
Tomorrow image editing for the advanced class.
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