I mean, scanning is scanning isn't it? Shove a picture face-down on it, click a button and that's it.

When I heard about How to do Everything with your Scanner I figured it had to be an irresistable look.

Written by Jill Gilbert and published by Osborne, distributed by McGraw-Hill in Australia, I discovered it to be more about using paint programs than scanning.

It promises a great deal and delivers on some.

Install and optimize your scanner and software. Yeah, OK. There can't be many of us who don't know how to install a program on a computer.

Turn scanned images into business promotions or fun projects: meaning, install PhotoDeluxe and start manipulating.

I guess I'm being a bit unfair, because there really is a lot to be learned about how to scan and gain optimum results.

But when I saw in the opening pages a scanned picture of a girl with teeth-braces and the following picture with the braces painted out, I had to laugh. It was a mess.

If you don't know how to do something like that properly with Photoshop then I suppose you can learn from the book.

It does show you how to scan negatives, slides, magazines and more.

Also how to create a website with scanned photos: Photoshop stuff again.

Hang on, isn't this supposed to be about scanning?

What has a paint or illustration program got to do with how to scan?

I guess I'm a bit lost on this.

It teaches how to troubleshoot scanning problems and tricky issues.

It even goes into selecting the right image editing program: that's got to be worth someing, huh?

There are 368 pages, 16 colour pages, tons of black and whites (even if the reproduction leaves a lot to be desired).

Would I employ the girl that wrote this? I'd have to really think about that.

However, the book was written using Quark Xpress on a Mac G4.

Let's go bottom line: would I buy it for a friend who has just bought a scanner?

Yes, but only if that friend didn't have the slightest clue about how to scan.

Quite right: I really wasn't impressed, particularly with the quality of the reproductions.