Dear Bruce, I have found the following method of help when the writing is faded or badly copied. I scan at 600 dpi, make the image darker and zoom in a little. The scanner should pick up any image even if faded, and by darkening the image just a tad, you will enhance the faded image, give it a shot, you have nothing to lose. I found this worked really well on photocopied images taken from microfilms that were not the best. Regards, Bernie Green.