<P> During the early 1990s professional flatbed scanners were available over a local computer network . This proved useful to publishers, print shops, etc . This functionality largely fell out of use as the cost of flatbed scanners reduced enough to make sharing unnecessary . </P> <P> From 2000 all - in - one multi-purpose devices became available which were suitable for both small offices and consumers, with printing, scanning, copying, and fax capability in a single apparatus which can be made available to all members of a workgroup . </P> <P> Battery - powered portable scanners store scans on internal memory; they can later be transferred to a computer either by direct connection, typically USB, or in some cases a memory card may be removed from the scanner and plugged into the computer . </P> <P> A paint application such as GIMP or Adobe Photoshop must communicate with the scanner . There are many different scanners, and many of those scanners use different protocols . In order to simplify applications programming, some Applications programming interfaces ("API") were developed . The API presents a uniform interface to the scanner . This means that the application does not need to know the specific details of the scanner in order to access it directly . For example, Adobe Photoshop supports the TWAIN standard; therefore in theory Photoshop can acquire an image from any scanner that has a TWAIN driver . </P>

When you scan an image from a print source the scanner