... regarding my inquiry into why my scanner produces a gray background instead of white.

"Dear Mr. Black:

Thank you for contacting Canon product support. We value you as a Canon customer and appreciate the opportunity to assist you. We apologize for any difficulties that you may have been experiencing with scan quality from the LiDE 35.

Please follow these steps to calibrate the scanner:

1. From your desired graphics application, choose the option to acquire an image from a scanning source. In many applications, this option is labeled as "Acquire" and is located under the File menu.

2. This should bring up the ScanGear interface. From the ScanGear window, click the Advanced Mode button.

3. Click on the Settings tab.

4. Click the Calibration button and follow any prompts that appear on the computer monitor.

We hope this information is helpful to you. Please feel free to contact us again if you have any other questions or concerns with the LiDE 35.

Thank you for choosing Canon."