What is scanner

A scanner is an input device that captures and scans documents such as photographs and text. There are many types of scanners according to their design, scanning mechanism etc. When a document has to be scanned, first a document is converted into a digital signal and then scanning is done on this electronic version of the document.

Scanners come in hand-held, feed-in and flatbed types and come to scan black-and-white or color only. Very high resolution scanners are used for scanning for high-resolution printing, but scanners with low resolution are sufficient to capture images for computer displays.

Scanners usually come with software, such as Adobe's Photoshop product, that lets you resize and otherwise modify the captured image.