| # Apply Filters
Table of Contents How To... | The Blur filter softens an image. It dithers the sharp lines and edges, and smoothes color transitions. This filter is useful for eliminating noise where significant color transitions occur. You might use the Blur filter for retouching an image. By applying the Blur filter, you can mask small imperfections like dark dots. The Sharpness filter is useful when you want to provide more details in your image. It produces a counter-effect to the Blur effect. Use the Sharpness filter to sharpen the image contours, focus an image, and improve its clarity. The Fringe Removal filter can be used to remove a "chromatic aberration" phenomenon which is caused by the sampling timing difference of Red, Green and Blue sensors when the document is scanned. The Descreen filter can be used to remove dotted or "crosshatch" patterns (moire patterns) that generally occur when scanning images from newspapers or magazines. The Background Removal filter can be used to remove a light background from the image. You might use the Background Removal filter to uniform (do white) an image background when scanning images from newspapers.
If your device supports only Lineart B/W and/or Halftone B/W mode, you cannot apply the Background Removal, Descreen and Fringe Removal filters.
If your device does not support 256 Colors and/or True Color, RGB mode, you cannot apply the Fringe Removal filter.
To apply filters, click the Filters bar in the Options Panel. The Filters tab will appear. From the Filters tab, you can blur, sharpen or descreen the whole image, remove fringe effect or background:
Drag the Blur/Sharpness slider to apply the Blur or Sharpness effect. Dragging to the left makes the image more blurry. Dragging to the right sharpens the image. The center slider position applies no Blur or Sharpness filters. Check the Fringe Removal check-box to remove the Fringe effect. Check the Descreen check-box to apply the Descreen filter. Drag the Background Level slider or use the spin buttons to adjust the Background Level to apply the Background Removal filter. If the Background Level is equal to zero, then no image background is removed. Click the Auto button to fit the Background Level automatically.
** If you choose the above filters, the scan speed will be slower than with using no filter.
##### Related Topics:
Working With ScanThru Options Panel Image Type Channel