Here's the thing: My scanner can't seem to handle shiny portions of books and other items -- I think the term is probably "foil-embossed." Here's an example of something I scanned:

http://www.geocities.com/chibischala/me … hinese.jpg

The title of the book at the top (within the white box) is supposed to be shiny silver, but it comes out as very dark instead and you can barely see it. Messing around with levels in Photoshop will not return it to its original state, either.

My scanner has done this from the very beginning, so I don't know if this is just the limitations of the scanner or if there's a setting that can be tweaked. Can anyone help?

I don't think that there's a scanner around that can help you with that. You may just need to get fancy with some graphics software by selecting the shiny portions and painting them a flat color.

Just the limitations of scanners in general, I think. I discovered this myself the hard way when I tried to scan the DDR 3rd MIX booklet (which is entirely shiny) and ended up with a dark, unworldly mess. I have read that polarizing sheets can help, but haven't tried it myself. Usually I just try increasing the contrast and brightness to try to make the shiny portions a bit more readable.