8 Creative Weekend Printer Projects

If you have a multifunction printer with a built-in scanner, here's how to go beyond boring old document scanning: Use them to take close-up shots, just by putting stuff directly on the scanner glass. It's called "Scanography," and the results can be both beautiful and bizarre.

Scanners typically have a rather shallow field depth (generally about half an inch at most), and they take much longer to process an image than a digital camera, so the clearest images come out with flat inanimate objects, like flowers and leaves, which can yield a very vivid high-resolution image that a camera cannot. Of course, these shortcomings can be used to artistic effect, as well. Scanning a human face, for example, will obscure most of the face in shadow (due to the field depth), and if the subject moves at any time the image will be "wavy" and distorted.

Have your own printer projects (or pictures) you'd like to share Post them in the comments!

Patrick Miller is a staff editor for PC World. Find him off-duty @pattheflip.