So what is the alternative to buying a digital camera, if you still want to produce digital images you can store on your computer, e-mail to friends, or put up on your Web page? The main solution involves buying a colour flatbed scanner. First of all, they are cheap. You can get an Agfa, Epson, Hewlett-Packard or Umax scanner for less than $3,500, less than all but the cheapest digital cameras.
Second, using these scanners to scan a typical 3R print will produce images better than all but expensive professional digital cameras.
Most scanners have pure optical resolutions of either 300 dots per inch or 400 dpi. Scanners which boast higher resolutions, say 600 x 1200 dpi, are usually measuring their interpolated resolution, which involves all sorts of software enhancements that may or may not actually prove better.
Anyway, if you scan a 3R print on a 300 dpi scanner, you will produce a file of 3.86 megabits (size measuring the resolution, not the colour quality).
A professional-grade digital camera costing $75,000 like Nikon AP-NC2000e produces a similar-size file.
Meanwhile, a typical cheaper digital camera with a 640 x 480 resolution produces a file sized 900 Kb.