Working with an Image

  1. Despeckle image

    The recognized image may contain a large amount of "dust" (i.e. excess dots) if the original is medium–to–low print quality. Dust, when it resides close to character outlines, may adversely affect recognition quality. To decrease the number of dots:

    To despeckle a particular block:

    Note: Despeckling may decrease recognition quality if the original document is very faint or contains a light font. Very small characters, such as periods or commas, and parts of very thin characters may disappear.

  2. Change image resolution

    Image resolution shows the fineness of detail that can be distinguished in an image and is measured in dots per inch (dpi). ABBYY FineReader shows best OCR performance when vertical and horizontal resolution is the same and is in the range from 50 to 3200 dpi. The recommended range is 200-600 dpi, and the recommended setting is 300 dpi.

    If image resolution is too small or too large, this may have an adverse effect on the quality of OCR.

    Some image formats, e.g. *.bmp files, have no resolution. Sometimes an image may have non-standard resolution, e.g. 204*96 dpi, which may also adversely affect the quality of OCR.

    ABBYY FineReader checks the resolution of each image and corrects if required, leaving the image dimensions unchanged. Images whose resolution has been corrected by the program are marked with in the Batch window. Place the mouse cursor over such an image to see a pop-up tip.

    If OCR quality for a particular image is poor, changing its resolution may help improve the quality. To change the resolution of an image marked with :

    1. In the Batch window, select the image  marked with whose resolution you wish to change. If the pop-up tip says that the image has invalid resolution, select the Correct Resolution command from the Image menu.
    2. In the dialog that opens, either select the type of the image (scanned image, faxed image, or screenshot) or select Other resolution and type in the exact resolution of the image.
    3. Select Selected images to change the resolution of the selected images. Select All images in batch to change the resolution of all the images in the batch. The latter option is recommended for images obtained from one and the same source.
  3. Straighten text lines

When scanning very thick books, the text close to the binding may be distorted. Similarly, when photographing text with a digital camera, the text close to the margin may be distorted. To remedy such distortions:

Note: Straightening text lines may take some time.

  1. Invert image

    Some scanners invert images (turning black into white and vice versa) during scanning.

    You may wish to apply the Invert Image option to create a uniform or standard appearance (e.g. a black font against a white background) among the documents. To do this:

    Note: If you scan or open inverted images, select the Invert image item in the Scan/Open group in the Legacy Options dialog prior to adding these images to the batch. To open the Legacy Options dialog, click the Legacy Options... button on the General tab in the Options dialog.

  2. Rotate or flip image

    Recognition quality relies on the image having a standard orientation (the text should be read from top to bottom and all lines should be horizontal). ABBYY FineReader automatically detects page orientation during the recognition stage. If the program detects page orientation incorrectly, clear Detect image orientation (during recognition) on the Scan/Open tab and rotate the image manually. To do this:

    To flip the image:

  3. Clear block

    You may choose to skip recognizing a particular image area or eradicate large areas of dust on the image by erasing them. To do this:

  4. Crop image

    Sometimes a scanned image may have dark borders. You can crop the unwanted black areas before running OCR. You can also use the Crop Image tool to reduce the image to a standard paper size, such as A4 or A5.

    1. In the Image window, select the tool (or select the Crop Image command from the Image menu);
    2. The image will be displayed in a Crop Image window and its borders indicated by black lines.

    Note:

    1. We recommend cropping an image before you have drawn blocks and recognized the image.
    2. You can change the color of the image borders used in the Crop window. In order to do this, go to the View tab of the Options dialog (menu Tools>Options). In the Appearance group, select the Crop Image Block from the list and click the Color field. In the Color dialog, choose the desired color.
  5. Increase/Decrease image scale

  6. Get image information 

    You can obtain a number of parameters about your image: image width and height in pixels; vertical and horizontal resolution per inch (dpi); and image type. To do this: 

  7. Print image
    You can print the image in the Image window, the pages selected in the Batch window, or all batch page images. To do this:
  8. Undo the last action

    Tip: To reverse an Undo action, click the Redo button on the Standard bar .