Troubleshooting Remote Mail Scan Image Quality Using PixTools

 

This article reviews the top 5 issues with Remote Mail Scan Image Quality for Checks.  Many of these can also be applied to remits, as they often share similar issues. Each of these filters utilizes the PixTools Filter group.

 

To access these filters, perform the following steps:

 

1. Launch Scanner Configuration Utility

2. Select the Image Filters tab

3. Select the Filter Type dropdown, and then select Pixtools

4. Choose the Image Filter Type you'd like to configure. The Image Filter Dialogue launches.

5. Select the filters you want to add from the Available Filters menu. Use the arrow buttons to move filters between the Available Filters and Selected Filters lists.

6. Select OK to confirm your choices.

 

Common Image Quality Problems

 

My Checks Have a Background Image and/or Color

 

Try applying the Background Dropout Filter. This filter allows the system to detect color in the background. This filter utilizes the following settings:

 

1. Conversion Mode: Conversion Mode allows you to decide between smoothing colors in the background or replacing them. Smoothing works well when a check has a uniform color scheme, i.e., all green with a green watermark. Replace with color works well when the check has multiple colors, or is complex, i.e., a landscape or cartoon background.

    

2. Sensitivity: Sensitivity allows you to determine the threshold before the filter will begin applying background filters. 0 is the default, -20 would make checks darker and the foreground more prominent, and 20 would make the check lighter with less prominence in the foreground.

    

My Checks Have Colorful Designs/Patterns

 

Try applying the Threshold Filter. This filter attempts to convert color images (24-bit) to black and white (2-bit). This filter utilizes the following settings:

 

1. Brightness: Brightness allows you to shift what becomes black and what becomes white. A higher value makes the image brighter and more items will become white. A lower value makes the image darker, and more items will become black. 

    

2. Contrast: Contrast determines the difference between dark objects and light objects. A higher value will make dark image areas darker, and light image areas lighter. A lower value will still increase the difference between dark and light, but less significantly.

    

3. Features: Features allows you to select what type of data is displayed on the image. Your options are Text, Barcode, and Image. For our uses when scanning checks and remits, Text is usually the only option required.

    

4. Quality: Quality allows you to decide the amount of time taken to process an image. A Fast Quality will process quickly but may be less effective. A Good Quality will ensure accuracy over speed of processing.

    

My Checks Have Lots of Little Black Dots

 

Try applying the Noise Removal Filter. This filter removes small black smudges caused by poor scan quality, dirty scanners, or dirty checks/pages. This is also called despeckling. This Feature utilizes the following settings:

 

1. Noise Removal: Noise Removal provides options for units, height, width, area, and separation. Most of the time, the defaults are acceptable. Changing the height/width changes the sizing of the items to be removed. Max Area allows you to determine how much of the height/width must be met for the item to be removed. Min Separation determines how far apart each element needs to be in order to be removed.

    

My Checks Scan Crookedly

 

Try applying the Deskew Filter. This filter attempts to straighten an image that was scanned in at an angle (skewed). This Feature utilizes the following settings:

 

1. Mode: Mode will determine if the deskew is determined by the text in an image, or based on the graphics in the image (lines, boxes, etc.) As we are dealing with software to detect numbers and letters, the default of Text is preferred.

    

2. Operating Mode: Operating Mode will determine how the operation is performed, either by auto- detection and deskew, by a fixed angle, or by auto-detection alone. The default option is preferred.

    

3. Fixed Angle: If Rotate by a fixed angle is selected in Operating Mode, this option becomes available. This function is preferred only when a scanner consistently skews all images by the same amount and is seldom used.

    

4. Fill Color: Fill color allows the user to choose with which color the background image will fill after the skew is complete. Unless you scan checks inverted (black background with white text), White is the preferred fill color.

    

5. Direction: Direction allows the user to choose whether checks are deskewed from left-to-right (horizontal) or top-to-bottom(vertical), or both. As most check scanners feed checks from left to right, horizontal is preferred. The option for both might be beneficial on a page feed or flatbed scanner.

    

6. Quality: Quality allows you to decide the amount of time taken to process an image. A Fast Quality will process quickly but may be less effective. A Good Quality will ensure accuracy over speed of processing.

    

My Checks Are Too Light to Read

 

Try applying the Dilation Filter. Dilation attempts to make black areas blacker. It is similar to changing a font to Bold, but across an entire image. This filter is very good for light or thin fonts but can cause issue when a mixture of types of checks are scanned. This Filter utilizes the following settings:

 

1. Direction: Direction allows the user to choose whether checks are dilated from left-to-right (horizontal), top-to-bottom(vertical), or diagonally. As most check scanners feed checks from left to right, horizontal is preferred. The option for vertical or diagonal might be beneficial on a page feed or flatbed scanner.

    

2. Number of Passes: Number of Passes determines how many times (in addition to the first) the system attempts to apply the filter. For most cases, setting this to 0 will produce a marginal increase, while each additional pass will make black lines, marks, and characters more prominent.