For certain kinds of images, you can use a scanner as a camera -- a very flexible and very high-resolution camera -- by just putting a plastic wrap over the scanning surface, and then putting the stuff you want to photograph right on it. A cereal box, a pile of marbles, all sorts of things can be scanned right into your computer.

Lighting is excellent -- each part of the subject is brightly and directly lit as the image is captured -- and resolution is just about whatever you want it to be. (Of course, your image is going to end up being displayed at 96 dpi, so don't waste hours scanning piles of sugar at 300 dpi.)

You don't need to do this every day, but it's a great way to get unexpected images onto your computer quickly and easily.