Interactive hardcopy re-sampling without re-scanning

High volume, finished production of documents is typically referred to as production printing. A production printer is a printing device capable of rapid production of large volumes of documents. Typically these printers have high paper handling capacity, the ability to draw on multiple media types from multiple sources and the ability to automatically finish a document such as by adding a binding. Despite the automation provided by the production printer and the proliferation of computer technology, especially in the area of desktop publishing, production printing is still a complicated and often manual process. A method and system are provided for scanning a page having different image attributes on different zones of the page. The method and system use a scanner having a resident image buffer and scanning circuitry including a plurality of scanning algorithms having optimum rendering characteristics for imaging images with a plurality of different image attributes. The scanner scans the page and an image of the page is provided on a display. The operator uses an input device to designate a zone of said page on said display. The data from said scanned page is stored in a buffer resident on said scanner prior to rendering of said data. The operator also designates a selected one of said algorithms to be applied to the designated zone. The scanner applies the designated algorithm to the data stored in the resident image buffer for the designated zone. The scanner renders an image of the data stored in the resident image buffer.