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Learn Series Part 3: How to get consistent volume levels across the timeline

<< Part 2  ∥  Part 4 >>      This is a part of the ongoing Learn series with Mike Russell which will help you get started with Adobe Audition. We've some interesting articles & videos coming up weekly where we will talk about the tools, workflow & some really cool effects. Let us know how you use Audition & what you want to learn about Adobe Audition. We're here to help.     In this video, you will learn how to make clips with different volume levels sound equally loud by using the tools available in Adobe Audition. 0:54 - Put volume recorded at different levels on separate tracks 1:13 - Start by using the Match Clip Loudness tool 2:25 - Use the Dynamics effect on each track 2:41 - Switch on and setup a compressor 4:11 - Adjust a compressor again for the next track 5:19 - Check to make sure volume levels match 5:35 - Mixing down audio from multitrack to get a final waveform 5:58 - How the audio looked before any adjustments 6:09 - Conclusion on volume leveling   More on Matching Loudness Learn more about the Level meters to monitor the recording and playback levels in Audition. Learn about different Loudness Standards and matching loudness across multiple audio files. Learn how to use the ITU Loudness Radar panel to find and fix audio passages that exceed volume limits so your project adheres to broadcast regulations. Deliver broadcast-quality audio by conforming audio to a standard of choice by using the Match Clip Loudness or Match Loudness panel.   Pro tipMatch Clip Loudness can be used in the Multitrack Editor to conform clips to a particular standard nondestructively.  If you want to conform loudness standard outside Multitrack Editor or a session you may use Match Loudness panel to batch conform multiple files together by simply dragging the clips from the Files panel to the Match Loudness panel and selecting the desired loudness standard. Hope this helps in understanding how to establish audio continuity by avoiding one section of the timeline sound disproportionately louder than the other. Refer to this page to explore the other videos of this series. Let us know if you have any questions   << Part 2  ∥  Part 4 >> 

エラーコード1/P1への対処

概要  主に、Creative Cloudデスクトップからアプリケーションをインストール(またはアップデート)する時に発生する、「エラーコード1/エラーコードP1」への対処法です。  まずは下記Webページにある作業を試し、改善に至らない場合は本ページ記載の作業をお試しください。 インストールエラーの解決 | Creative Cloud デスクトップアプリケーション   対処法1  インストールに必要なフォルダへのアクセス権限を確認し、修正します。 macOSの場合 /private/tmp※Finderメニューの「移動→フォルダへ移動」で「/private」へ移動し、「tmp」フォルダのアクセス権を修正します Macintosh HD/Library/Application Support/Adobe Macintosh HD/Users/<ユーザー名>/Library/Application Support/Adobe※「Macintosh HD/Users/<ユーザー名>/Library」へのアクセス方法はこちらをご参照ください非表示のユーザーライブラリフォルダーにアクセスする方法(Mac OS X 10.7 以降) Macintosh HD/Applications/Utility Windowsの場合 C:\Users\<ユーザー名>\AppData\Local\Temp※「AppData」は隠しフォルダでなので、あらかじめ表示させておきましょう隠しファイルおよび隠しフォルダーを表示する方法(Windows 10/8.1/8/7/Vista/XP) C:\Users\<ユーザー名>\AppData\Local\Adobe C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe C:\Program Files\Adobe C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe C:\Program Data\Adobe アクセス権の確認・修正方法フォルダのアクセス権を初期化する   対処法2  アクセス権限にはOSのユーザーアカウントも関わるため、アカウントの変更で改善できるかを試します。 管理者権限を持つユーザーアカウントを、新たに1つ作成します。新規ユーザーアカウントの作成方法 (Windows XP/7/Vista/8/8.1/10/Mac OS) 既存のアカウントから、ログオフします。 新たに作成したアカウントで、ログインします。 インストール(アップデート)を試します。 正常に完了したら、アプリケーションが正常に起動するかを確認します。 新たに作成したアカウントから、ログオフします。 既存のアカウントで、ログインします。 もう一度、アプリケーションが正常に起動するかを確認します。  既存のアカウントでアプリケーションが起動できない場合は、新たに作成したアカウントへの移行を検討します。 既存のアカウントでのご利用をご希望の場合は、下記Webページを参照してトラブルシュートを試みます。 特定のユーザーアカウントで予期しない問題が発生する場合のトラブルシューティング(Mac OS X) 特定のユーザーアカウントで予期しない問題が発生する場合のトラブルシューティング(Windows 8/10)   対処法3  アドビアプリケーションをアンインストールし、さらにアプリケーションに関連するフォルダを手動で削除します。 そのあと、あらためてインストールを行います。  Adobeに関連するフォルダを全て削除し再インストールする方法

Learn Series Part 2: Difference between Waveform and Multitrack Editor

<< Part 1  ∥  Part 3 >>      This is a part of the ongoing Learn series with Mike Russell which will help you get started with Adobe Audition. We've some interesting articles & videos coming up weekly where we will talk about the tools, workflow & some really cool effects. Let us know how you use Audition & what you want to learn about Adobe Audition. We're here to help   In this video, you will understand the difference between the Waveform and Multitrack Editor and when to use one over the other. Learn the concept of Destructive and Non Destructive editing. 0:13 - What is the Adobe Audition Waveform view best for? 0:26 - What is the Multitrack used for?   0:37 - How to mix multiple audio clips together? 1:00 - Example of mixing multiple audio clips together  1:53 - Destructive audio editing in Waveform view   2:18 - Non-destructive audio editing in Multitrack view    3:04 - Adobe Audition Multitrack podcast editing example    4:02 - Ripple delete in Multitrack view is great for podcast editors   4:23 - Why would you use Waveform instead of Multitrack?    4:43 - Spectral frequency display in Waveform view            Allows to edit a single audio file with higher precision.  Allows mixing multiple audio tracks in a layer-based composition.  It's destructive In nature. Saving any changes or applied effects overwrites the original audio file.  It's non-destructive in nature. This editor uses existing media or creates new media files but never makes changes to the original media file.  Useful for in-depth analysis and sample-accurate selections and processing  Good for creating musical compositions, podcasts, and video post-production which require multiple audio tracks to be modified independently.     Learn more about these editors An intro to Waveform Editor An intro to Multitrack Editor Difference between the two editors   Hope it helps in understanding the two audio editing workflows in Audition. Refer to this page to explore the other videos of this series. Let us know if you have any questions.   << Part 1  ∥  Part 3 >> 

Learn Series Part 1: An intro to Adobe Audition

Part 2 >>    This is a part of the ongoing Learn series with Mike Russell which will help you get started with Adobe Audition. We've some interesting articles & videos coming up weekly where we will talk about the tools, workflow & some really cool effects. Let us know how you use Audition & what you want to learn about Adobe Audition. We're here to help.   This video will help you learn the basics and give you an overview of Adobe Audition. Learn how to setup your audio hardware, record, mix, add effects, and edit your compositions. This video will also help you in familiarizing with the essential tools, panels, and features in Audition. Topics discussed in this video 0:11 Set up your audio hardware 1:21 Configure Audio Hardware preferences to ensure that your preferred audio devices are selected for Input and Output 2:09 Configure Audio Channel mapping- Learn  to set up audio hardware and channel mapping in detail 2:44 How to record and playback audio- Learn more about recording audio in Audition 3:32 How to use levels meter to ensure recorded audio is not clipping and is getting recorded at correct audio levels- Learn more about Level meters    5:03 Tour of a few essential panels Files panel Media Browser panel- Learn about importing files using these panels Pro tip: Enable Auto-Play    in the Media browser panel to automatically play the selected clip. This can help in quickly previewing the clips before importing. Effects Rack panel Markers panel   Properties panel History panel  Video Panel Levels panel Essential Sound panel    7:24  Discussing workspaces- Learn more about workspaces  8.06 Working with selections- Learn about the audio selection in Audition  8:47  Add Effects using Effects Rack panel 9:04 Discussing EQ (Para EQ) 10:12 Discussing Compression 11.39 Noise reduction using Spectral Frequency Display 13:26 Noise reduction using DeNoise plugin   14:34 Discussing Multitrack Editor to mix different audio tracks together- Learn more about Multitrack Editor 17:03 Using Hard Limiter  17:37 Pan audio  17:53  Multitrack mixdown- Learn how to export multitrack down files18:16  Save the mix as an audio file- Learn how to save files from the Waveform editor 19:00 The magic trick- Can we do anything to restore heavily clipped audio?  20:15 A quick recap of what Adobe Audition can do We also recommend going through these articles to understand the fundamentals of Digital Audio. Understanding soundRead this document to understand the basics of sound Digitizing audioLearn about digitizing audio   Hope you find it useful. That’s just a taste of what Audition can do. Think of Audition as a soundstage for storytelling, an Adobe design app for audio with all of the tools you need for telling stories with audio of any kind. Refer to this page to explore the other videos of this series   Part 2 >> 

MacOS 10.15 (Catalina)上で Acrobat 2017 または Acrobat 2015 にログイン時に Acrobat Licensing Application が動かない事象

【発生要因】ライセンス認証を実施するために権限が不足しているため、発生しています。   【事象発生端末について】MacOS 10.15 (Catalina)が多く発生しますが、10.14 (Mojave)、10.13 (High Sierra) でも発生することを確認しています。   以下に対処手順を記載しておりますので、ご確認いただき作業をお願いします。 ※1 MacOS 購入時から MacOS 10.15 (Catalina)の場合は、以下の URL の手順にて新しい MacOSのアカウントを作成後に後述する手順をご実施いただくことで改善される事例が多くございます。    ライセンス認証後は既存の MacOS のアカウントで Acrobat の利用が可能です。    【新規ユーザーアカウントの作成方法 (Windows XP/7/Vista/8/8.1/10/Mac OS)】   https://helpx.adobe.com/jp/x-productkb/global/cpsid_83227.html#anc_mac   ※2 ご利用いただいている MacOS のアカウントのパスワードが空白の方は、パスワードの再設定をお願いします。   【手順】 ※初回起動のみ以下の手順で実施し、次回から通常起動で問題ございません。   1. Finder を開き、[移動] - [ユーティリティー] の順にクリックします。                        2. [ターミナル] をダブルクリックします。                        3. [ターミナル] が起動しましたら、"sudo " とスペースキーで空白を 1つ 入力します。                        4. Finder を開きます。 5. [アプリケーション] – [Adobe Acrobat 2017] のクリック後、[Adobe Acrobat] を右クリックし、”パッケージの内容を表示” をクリックします。                          6. [Contents] - [MacOS] の順にクリックします。                        7. "Adobe Acrobat" を項番3 で入力しているターミナルにドラック&ドロップします。                  8. [Enter] キーを押下します。                      9. MacOS のパスワードが求められますので、パスワードを入力します。 ※ パスワードを入力しても入力した文字は表示されませんので、パスワード入力後、[Enter] キーを押下してください。     10.ライセンス認証のアプリケーションが起動しますので、画面に従い Adobe ID と パスワードを入力し、ライセンス認証を実施します。 ※ ライセンス認証のアプリケーションが英語で起動される場合もございます。    11. ライセンス認証完了後に Acrobat 2017 が起動しましたら、ライセンス認証が完了しています。

Getting Started with Audio Editing

Audio editing can be overwhelming at times especially if we don’t know where to start. We are bringing a series of videos with Mike Russell where he will reveal the world of audio editing using Adobe Audition. These videos will help you bring stories to life with sound.         Mike Russell   Mike Russell is the Creative Director of Music Radio Creative. Audio production is his life. Mike is passionate about helping you to sound great! He presents a weekly live stream and releases regular videos on his YouTube channel about producing podcasts, cleaning up audio, improving the sound of your voice, creating music, sound design and more. Mike has built a career in the radio industry for over two decades, from the 1990s until the early 2010s, as an on air host and producer of multiple music and talk radio shows. He's worked for radio groups across the UK such as Global Radio and Guardian Media Group. He even hosted a morning breakfast show in Australia during his time in radio.  Mike's real passion is in the producing side of audio and most specifically teaching others to do the same. He often speaks on the subject of audio and teaches workshops around the world on how to get the most from the amazing Adobe Audition!         If you're not sure when you need to edit your audio watch this video. Mike shows how different microphones can sound drastically different and a sneak peek to the right microphone for the right job.  This video would be a part of a series of videos coming every week which will help you create great sounding audio.   A few of the mics discussed in the video. 0:09 - Don't use an internal microphone   0:16 - Condenser microphones sound great   0:33 - Dynamic microphones are also a good choice 0:37 - Shotguns to create great sound for filmmakers   0:48 - Camera mounted shotgun mics need you to be close   0:58 - Lavalier mics are good for on the move interviews   This series should help you get started. We've some interesting articles & videos coming up soon where we will talk about the tools, workflow & some really cool effects. Let us know how you use Audition & what you want to learn about Adobe Audition. We're here to help.   Learn Series for Adobe AuditionPart 1- An Intro to Adobe Audition Part 2- Difference between Waveform and Multitrack Editor Part 3- How to get consistent volume levels across the timeline Part 4- How to improve audio quality Part 5- How to fix playback and audio problems in Audition Part 6- When and how to use Spectral Frequency Display Part 7- How to even out volume levels with Normalize & Speech Volume Leveler Part 8- How to fix audio or sound recording issues in Audition Part 9- When and how to use Audio Bus in Audition Part 10- How to do Noise Reduction in Audition Part 11- How to troubleshoot "No Supported Audio Device" error Part 12- How to record with multiple mics at the same time Part 13- How to use Dynamic link between Premiere Pro and Audition Part 14- How to solve playback issues with Bluetooth Headphones Part 15- How to slow down a track without affecting the pitch Part 16- How to remove echo in Adobe Audition Part 17- How to combine multiple .sesx files using copy and paste in Audition Part 18- How to extract vocals or instrumental music from a mix Part 19- How to remove muffled audio and background reverb in Audition Part 20- How to subtract one piece of audio from another Part 21- How to migrate presets using the session file Part 22- How to extend the duration of Multitrack in Audition Part 23- How to fix the greyed out recording button in Audition Part 24- How to copy and paste audio effects to other clips in Audition Part 25- How to fix MME Device Internal Error

FAQ: What is a .sesx file? An intro to Multitrack editing.

  Often you may want to edit and mix multiple audio tracks together. The Multitrack Editor in Audition is a tool designed for such tasks. Here you can mix multiple audio files and create layer-based tracks and compositions. It allows you to record and mix unlimited tracks, and each track can contain as many clips as you need, the only limits are hard disk space and processing power.       The Multitrack Editor is non-destructive, it allows you to make changes and adjustments to the track without affecting the original source files. It also allows realtime editing, meaning you can make the adjustments to the track during the playback and hear the changes made.   The collection of these audio tracks with the effects and adjustment applied is termed as a session. Audition saves this session in a file with .sesx format.       These .sesx files (session files) are the project files of Adobe Audion. They are similar to the project files of Premiere Pro (.prproj) and After Effects (.aep).  These files contain no audio data themselves. Instead, they are small XML-based files that point to other audio and video files on the hard drive and have the info about the types of effects applied and their parameters. A session file tracks the following:  - Audio and Video files which are a part of the session.  - Location of these files.- Envelopes and effects that are applied (such as volume, pan, and effect settings).    While you are doing your edit or mix you can save the session (.sesx file) to pause your work and resume it later as required. And when you are done with the mix, you can export the multitrack mixdown as an audio file using Auditon or Adobe Media Encoder.    Here are a few links that explain the complete procedure of importing, editing & exporting while using the Multitrack Editor.  How to create a new Multitrack session? https://helpx.adobe.com/in/audition/using/creating-opening-files.html#create_a_multitrack_session  How to import audio files in the session?  https://helpx.adobe.com/in/audition/using/creating-opening-files.html#insert_an_audio_file_into_a_multitrack_session  How to work in the Multitrack Editor?  https://helpx.adobe.com/in/audition/using/multitrack-editor-overview.html#editing_multitrack_sessions_in_the_editor_panel_and_mixer  How to save the session?  https://helpx.adobe.com/in/audition/using/saving-exporting-files1.html#save_multitrack_sessions  How to export session Templates?  If you are working on multiple related projects or shows, you may want to have a common audio theme for these shows like an intro & outro. Session Templates can be used in such cases as it allows you to save audio tracks and effects applied as a theme that can be used as a preset. This can be then used as a starting point for your related projects.  https://helpx.adobe.com/in/audition/using/saving-exporting-files1.html#id_59417  How to migrate the session file along with the media to a different computer?  https://helpx.adobe.com/in/audition/using/saving-exporting-files1.html#id_2294 Tip: To easily migrate the session files, you may save the session files and the associated media files in a unique folder. If you later need to move the session to another computer, you can simply move the unique session folder.  How to export the session to external applications?  https://helpx.adobe.com/in/audition/using/saving-exporting-files1.html#export_sessions_to_omf_or_final_cut_pro_interchange_format  How to export the session as an audio file?  https://helpx.adobe.com/in/audition/using/saving-exporting-files1.html#export_multitrack_mixdown_files https://helpx.adobe.com/in/audition/how-to/export-multitrack.html    Hope it helps in getting started with the Multitrack editing in Adobe Audition.   Thanks, Sumeet

Avoid Phishing: 3 Easy Ways to Identify Adobe Staff

ログイン後や起動時に「上限に達しました」というメッセージが出る

概要この文書では、Creative Cloudアプリケーション利用で、アプリケーション自体を起動したりアプリケーションを起動したあとにログインを行った際に、ウィンドウ上に「上限に達しました」「この6ソフトウェアは2台までのコンピューターで使用が認められています。」とメッセージが出た時の対処方法をご紹介いたします。※対処方法は、こちらの文書でもご参照いただけます。Creative Cloud の「ライセンス認証の制限値に到達しました」または「ログインに失敗しました」エラー 目次対処方法1対処方法2対処方法3エラーメッセージについての解説シリアル番号版の製品(AcrobatやCS6など)を利用したいのに「上限に達しました」のメッセージが出る場合シリアル番号入力画面で「このシリアル番号は使用可能コンピューターの最大台数で既に使用されています。」と出る対処方法1ウィンドウ内に表示されている「他のコンピューターから自動的にログアウトして、ここでログインする」にチェックを入れて画面右下の「続行」ボタンを押すと、アプリケーションが起動できるようになります。※この作業をすると、メッセージが出たPC以外の、同一メールアドレスで利用している別のPCからログアウトされます。ログアウトされた別のPCからソフトウェアを起動しようとすると、起動時にログインが求められますので再度ログインしていただければ変わらず利用できるようになります。(ログイン状態を保持できるのは2台までです)対処方法2アカウント管理ページから解除することにより、アプリケーションが起動できるようになります。*Creative Cloud個人版契約のみ可能な対処です。Creative Cloudグループ版ご契約の場合は対処1か対処3をお試しください。1.アカウント管理ページにアクセスします。2.プラン及び製品>プランを管理をクリックします。3.「ライセンス認証したデバイス」欄の「ライセンス認証を解除」にある(×)マークをクリックします。 *「名前」はPC固有の自動的に割り振られているIDのため、名前からどのPCがどれかという確認はできません。  認証日でおそらくこのPCであろう、というご判断をいただくこととなります。4.アプリケーションを起動し、ログインを求められた場合はログインをすると起動できます。詳細の手順は、以下ページの「弊社 Web サイトのアカウント管理ページから認証を解除する」欄をご参照ください。ライセンス認証・アクティベーションができない場合の対処方法対処方法3ログインしている別のPCからログアウトを行い、利用中の台数を減らした後に再度起動やログインをしていただくと、アプリケーションが利用できるようになります。Creative Cloud アプリケーションをライセンス認証またはライセンス認証解除する方法の説明エラーメッセージについての解説このメッセージは、他の2台のPCでログインされている、と認識されている状態で3台目のPCにてアプリケーションを起動したり、起動した後にログインしたりした時に出てくるメッセージです。Creative Cloudでは、ひとつのAdobeIDにつき2台のPCまでログインできる仕様のためそれを超えた場合に、上限をすぎている、として当メッセージが出てまいります。Creative Cloudアプリケーションからログアウトしない状態でPCを破棄や譲渡すると手元にはPCがないものの、ログインしている状態が保持され、エラーメッセージが出てくる原因となります。また、ログアウトしない状態でPCのマザーボードの交換だったり、PCの基幹系に変更があった場合などに以前とは別のPCと認識されてしまい、台数が超過しているとメッセージが出てくることがあります。*PCのユーザーアカウントの変更は別のPCとはカウントされません。関連リンク:契約をまとめてひとつのIDで利用できるようにしたい一つのIDを複数人で利用したいCreative Cloud の「ライセンス認証の制限値に到達しました」または「ログインに失敗しました」エラーシリアル番号版の製品(AcrobatやCS6など)を利用したいのに「上限に達しました」のメッセージが出る場合シリアル番号版の製品を利用したいのに、「上限に達しました」というメッセージが出る場合はログインに使用しているAdobeIDに、解約済みまたは契約中のCreative Cloudの情報があり、影響を受けています。新規で別のメールアドレスを用いて、AdobeIDを登録していただいてからログインし直すと、利用できるようになります。詳しくは以下文書の手順をご参照ください。CreativeCloud契約終了後、シリアル番号インストールしたCS6が起動不可になってしまう場合の対処シリアル番号入力画面で「このシリアル番号は使用可能コンピューターの最大台数で既に使用されています。」と出るサブスクリプション契約ではないCS6以前の製品で、シリアル番号入力画面にて「このシリアル番号は使用可能コンピューターの最大台数で既に使用されています。」と出た場合は以下文書の対処を実施ください。非サブスクリプション製品の「ライセンス認証の限度に達しました」または「サインインに失敗しました」エラー

【個人・法人共通】見積書、領収書、請求書発行についてのよくあるご質問

概要 この文書では、領収書、請求書、見積書の発行に関してのよくあるご質問をまとめています。 ※リセラー様経由で購入されたグループ版をご利用の場合は、ご購入元のリセラー様にお問い合わせください。     関連リンク 領収書の印刷と保存方法 [購入ガイド] 領収書・請求書がほしい     見積のご依頼と見積書の発行について   新規契約、契約更新時の場合 お見積りを希望の場合、弊社アドビストア(購入窓口)までご連絡をお願いいたします。 お問い合わせ (adobe.com)   お見積書はご依頼をいただいた後メールでお届けしておりますが ご要望がある場合は、お見積り希望と併せてアドビストアの担当者へお伝え頂くようお願い致します。     契約後の領収書・請求書のダウンロード可能時期について   クレジットカード払いの場合 カード決済が通った後にダウンロード可能となります。   銀行振り込み・コンビニ払いの場合 入金確認後(入金確認のメールが届いた後)にダウンロード可能となります。 ※ご契約更新の場合は、更新日を過ぎてからダウンロード可能となります。   ソフトウェアダウンロードカード(オンラインコード)の場合 Adobeから領収書は発行されませんので、購入店のレシートなどでご対応ください。     お支払い前に請求書がほしい(銀行振り込み・コンビニ払い)*新規契約・契約更新時   発行可否について、カスタマーサポートへご相談ください。 契約更新時の場合は、更新日のひと月前以降であれば、可否が判断可能となります。 更新日のひと月前以降にお問い合わせいただくようお願いいたします。 サポートへの連絡     領収書・請求書に記載する宛名の変更や会社名の記載が必要な場合   弊社HP、アカウント管理画面から宛名の変更や会社名の記載が可能です。 以下公開文書にて、詳細の変更手順をご紹介しております。 領収書の印刷と保存方法​     会社名のみで、個人名が併記されていない領収書・請求書にしたい   個人版をご利用の場合 可否について、カスタマーサポートへご相談ください。 サポートへの連絡   グループ版をご利用の場合 カスタマーサポートへご相談ください。サポートへの連絡     領収書・請求書への捺印(押印)について   恐縮ながら、弊社では領収書への押印はお承りしておりません。 領収書上に画像として挿入されておりますので、そちらでご対応をお願いしております。     解約後の領収書・請求書発行方法 個人版をご利用の場合 アカウント管理ページの、注文履歴>詳細を表示の画面より 発行したいプランをクリックすると、「請求履歴」欄からダウンロードいただけます。 AdobeID アカウント管理 - 注文履歴   法人版をご利用の場合 Admin Consoleよりダウンロードをいただけます。 グループ版アカウントの請求書と領収書の管理 (adobe.com) できない場合はカスタマーサポートまでお問い合わせください。 サポートへの連絡  

Scanning Clean, Searchable PDFs

When one converts a piece of paper to an electronic document,   all too often they are simply scanned at the "whatever" setting and saved as a JPEG. This is not surprising because JPEG is a format that most people have heard of so it's a "safe" format to select. Some scanners have an option to save as a PDF and that is preferable to a JPEG, but there are two areas this leaves off: a clean scan and a search-able PDF.First off, let me explain what I mean by a clean scan: our eyes are very forgiving. We look at a newspaper and see black text on  paper and we pretty much ignore that the paper is  non-white. The scanner doesn't know the paper is supposed to be white so it records it for what it is: not white. Since newspaper are a worse-case scenario, I will discus and demonstrate with newspaper but just be aware that  all scans will display   paper as being off-white unless you do something to make the paper white.Let me start with the dynamics of a clean scan and how to create a clean scan.The problems with newspapers start with the fact that the paper is not white and the thinness of the paper causes the text and anything else on the back side to show up through the page. Thus, if you just run the scanner on a section of newspaper you'd get something like this:One of the problems here is that there are some color images on the back side of this page and trying to deal with all of the colors is a waste of time. So, the first thing you can do here is to change your settings from Color scan to Black & White scan and that will give you this:While it's still bad shading, at least it's consistent-bad shading.At this point there are two options for the person doing the scanning:You can pre-clean the text prior to the final scan of the page.You can simply go with the gray background as above and get rid of that in a step further down in this articleNeedless to say, both of these have advantages and disadvantages but let's start with pre-cleaning the scan.Any time you are scanning, you need to first do a Prescan. This is done to verify that what you want to scan is on the scanning table and also allows you to crop the scan. This is also where you can make decisions on color or gray-scale scanning, resolution, final output size, create a name, where you are saving the image, etc. As a rule, I never save a scan as a JPEG, rather I always save it as a TIF image (for reasons that are beyond the focus of this blog). Yes, the TIF images will be large in storage size but do not worry, once you've converted them into PDFs (which will be considerably smaller), you can toss the TIF images you had just created.To fix the whiteness of the paper, bring up your scanner software's histogram. Most scanning software of merit has histograms and most of the software that comes with your scanner will have histograms. However, if you tend to use the "Full Auto mode" that some scanning software have, select the Professional mode that should also be available.[Important: Apple's Image Capture is absolutely dreadful for scanning and should be avoided at all cost. I do not know what's available as default on Windows machines but your first choice should be the software that came with your scanner. When first opened, it will probably come up with an Auto mode, do look for any options for Professional control.]When you first bring up the Histogram, it will probably look something like this (the red rectangle is my crop line):A histogram, if you are not familiar with them, is a bar graph of all  256 shades from black to white along the "X" (horizontal) axis where the far right is absolute white while  the far left side is absolute black. The "Y" (vertical) axis is the count of pixels that have that specific shade of gray so that if any given shade has a whole bunch of pixels, it will be tall column, if fewer pixels are of any given shade, it will be shorter. In the case of this scan, we can see that there's a lot of light-medium gray pixels through to some medium dark pixels and no white or light gray and no black or dark gray pixels.What we can do is to tell the scanner that light gray pixels should be considered white and that the medium dark pixels should be considered black. To to this you mouse-down and slide the little arrows on the bottom of the histogram until we see what we want as shown below:If you look at the image above you can see that most of the light gray pixels were too dark for what I wanted, I wanted the pixels that made the page look white. The trick is to maintain  the text remains black. Keep in mind this in entirely subjective. What you do not want to do is to make the gray so white as to cause the text to start losing its shape as shown below on the right side.The good news is that if you are scanning a number of pages, the controls of the histogram are sticky. That means that once you set everything for the first page, all subsequent pages from the same souce should be good to go.After setting the histogram, the final scan look pretty good as shown below:At this point you can either drag these TIFs into Acrobat icon or Open the TIF from the Acrobat's Open window. Acrobat will automatically convert these not only into PDFs but also "Searchable" PDFs. What that means is that Acrobat can "OCR" (Optical Character Recognition) all of the text and convert that into words so you can both search and copy and paste the text. Below is the TIF from above that has now been converted into a PDF and is also search-able You can see that it's search-able because I can select the text in the document.Had I not done that cleaning, Acrobat could still do the conversion to PDF and making it search-able as shown below.But is the text here any better or worse than the other? For those who do OCRing on a regular basis there are known issues that can come to bite you. For example if the letters "r" and "n" appear next to each other in a poor quality scan, they can be interpreted as an "m." One way to test this is to convert the PDF into a Word document and look for underlined text with red lines. The red lines indicate bad spelling that can either beA real word that Word doesn't know about (e.g., someone's surname)A word that was chopped in half (e.g., a hyphenated word, if Word didn't do the hyphenation so it doesn't know it's been hyphenated)A word that was originally misspelled in the documentA word that was badly OCRd.So, here's the cleaned text after converting into Word:And here's the text that was not pre-cleaned and converted into Word:As you can see, there are a significantly greater amount of errors with the text that was not pre-cleaned in the scanner prior to converting to text via OCR. But admittedly, a lot of people do not want to bother pre-cleaning a document, they don't think about it  or are unaware that it can be done.Now, I should point out one important thing here is that what you see in this PDF is not necessarily what the OCR text thinks it is. So for example, while in the PDF you may clearly see "It's raining.." as the first words in the story, the not pre-cleaned text is "It'sraining..." So if you copy and paste this, you may not get exactly what you are expecting.But I continue...However, there is ONE MORE way to clean a scan and make it into a nice looking PDF and that's to delete the background by editing out that background in Acrobat. OK, here's the deal: When text is OCRd in Acrobat, a new layer of text is created ON TOP of the original document. The original document is below and the text is removed from the original document, and any image remains in the lower layer. Any component of that PDF can be deleted at any time. Here's how:First open that original, non pre-cleaned scan in Acrobat, but this time after opening the document, click on "Edit PDF" in the Tools in the Right Hand Panel. If you do not see "Edit PDF..." in the Right Hand Panel, open Tools and click on the drop down below "Edit PDF" to add it to the Shortcuts on the Right Hand Panel. "Edit PDF" is such a valuable tool that if you do not already have it there, it should be for easy and quick access in the future.After adding it to the Right Hand Panel, the tool will default-land on the bottom. If you want to rearrange this you can move it to a higher location by simply dragging it to the location of your choice.Now that you have easy access to "Edit PDF...," click on it with your original scan. When you do so you will see Acrobat doing a variety of processing on the image.You will now see thin rectangle lines around all of the text. The text is now completely editable and if there were any words that the original article had misspelled, you can fix then. But the important thing here is that you can now click on the background and delete the background. As shown below: just click your cursor where there's no text:Now tap the Delete key and all the gray is gone. Then tap the Close Tool by clicking on the "X" in the upper right corner to get out of Edit mode:and you will see a very clean document as shown below [I want to thank Kelly Vaughn for introducing me to this great trick]:Keep in mind that the quality of this OCR is just as bad as it was before, the page just looks better. However, the actual quality of any scan will vary considerably all over the place so do not dismiss this approach out of hand. In addition, the value of an excellent OCR has more to do with the need for quality search-ability. The scan itself will be clean and easy to read and often, that's typically the most critical issue.One other issue  is: what do you do if the background contains important images. As stated earlier, the background contains the background content: both poor scanning debris AND any images that the document may have. The text, after OCRing, resides on a layer above the background. But if you rely upon deleting the back areas of a scan, watch out if there are images on the page.Finally, here is the page above but as a pre-cleaned color image scan that has both the images on the page as well as the text.Scanning a page with the intent of creating a PDF and/or to access the text of that page, one has make choices based on many factors: how clean the original page is, how thin the paper is, how much time do you want to take with the scan, is the quality of the OCR critical, and all of the other issues touched upon in this article. There is software out that that can do an amazing amount in "Auto" mode and I do not think you should avoid those when available. However, if the specific document you have does not provide an acceptable result, this article should provide the information for you to know what went wrong and why, and more importantly, how to get the best possible document to keep for yourself or to send to someone else.