| Scanners Reviews : Flatbed |
 | Canon CanoScan 4400F Color Image Scanner (1306B002)
Great scanner for the price -- 2009-01-04
This scanner is everything I need. I have so many negatives that have never been developed so with this it makes it easy for me to scan them and print out the photos. The only downside I found was that when scanning black and white developed negatives (like the kind you can develop yourself and not the color developed black and white negatives) the black and white is more of a brown and white. Other than that I love this scanner.
CanoScan Oh man! -- 2009-01-03
I have been searching for a way to get my parent's slides (from the 50s and 60s) onto my computer without spending a fortune. I did extensive research and found most products had disappointing reviews. When I found the Canon CanoScan 4400F I was somewhat reluctant to buy it, but I did. I set it up in minutes and was scanning the slides within 10-15 minutes. The scanner has a slot inside the lid which hold the slides and negatives in place. I scanned the negatives onto my computer and was so impressed with the results. The files were crisp and clear. I couldn't have asked for better pictures. I haven't used all the features, but I look forward to trying them out. I have a stack of photos and negatives to scan and I can't wait to see the results.
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 | Epson Perfection 4490 Photo Scanner
Epson Scanner 4490 -- 2008-11-04
I am very pleased with the product. I use it for scanning both opaque graphics and 35mm and 2 1/4 x 2 1/4 transparencies. I never use the holders for the mounted transparencies allowing me to scan more at once. I then separate them with the cropping tool in Photoshop. HINT! If the first slide in the row is too close to the top of the light slot the scanner will treat the material as opaque.
Excellent scans, weak software -- 2008-11-01
The Epson Perfection 4490 produces excellent scans of both opaque material, such as post cards and photos, and transparent material, such as slides and negatives. I was even able to scan 2.25" x 2.25" (120) mounted Ektachrome slides by removing the gate that holds medium format film in place. The gate is easy to remove and replace. This was important to me as I have many medium format slides in need of saving to digital format. The picture post card I scanned showed no moire artifacts and captured the colors perfectly.
The OCR software seemed limited and became confused if anything outside of standard text was on the page. It did, however, recognize a letterhead logo and captured it as a picture. When a poor quality carbon copy was scanned I spent more time correcting the errors than I would have spent typing it all myself in the first place.
Heads up on the advertisement that Photoshop Elements is bundled with the scanner! The included version is Photoshop Elements 2. That is a pretty old version since versions 6 and 7 are now out.
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 | Nikon Super CoolScan 5000 ED Film Scanner
Mac users beware... -- 2009-01-04
I've owned this scanner for several years. I did quite a bit of research when I purchased it and felt that it was the best value for the money at the time. I'm not aware of any new negative scanners coming onto the market in the past few years that would change that assessment.
I also have an Epson Perfection V500 Photo Scanner which I use for large format negatives. I've tried it for 35mm and I can tell you that the Nikon delivers superior results - no question.
I scan color slides as well as color & b+w negatives. The results are good with all of them. The scans are not as good as professional drum scans, but from a cost-per-scan standpoint this is the way to go. The main difference is edge focus which isn't perfect with the Nikon.
For my old 35mm color negs (which are generally from an old point and shoot) this scanner (along with the NikonScan software) does a great job. The software dust removal does a great job as well.
For my fine art 35mm b+w negatives it delivers good quality, high resolution scans. The dust removal software doesn't work on B+w however, so there's always some post clean-up involved.
I'm a Mac user and I have to warn you all that Nikon's included software just doesn't work on an Intel Mac. They seem completely uninterested in helping their Mac users and I have found the whole situation quite frustrating. However, I have had good, consistent success running NikonScan on Windows via Parallels. It seems crazy but it works pretty well. Sure it's inconvenient but after all the crashing in OSX I just gave up.
Nikon's support sucks so pray that you don't have a problem. I did and it took forever to get it handled. Still, since then my scanner has worked like a trooper.
I've demo'd other plugins like Silverfast but I don't like them very much so I use NikonScan in Windows.
I've often considered selling this scanner and getting something else, but I haven't found a better tool in this price range.
Much better than expected!! Works great with OS X 10.5 on the Mac -- 2009-01-03
I have used the coolscan 4000 for a while with mixed results and recently had a horrible time with it on a friends mac running OsX 10.5 with the newest cool scan 4.02 software.
Well I'm very happy to report that I picked up the 5000 over the weekend along with the 210 auto feeder and have been extremely impressed with the results.
Running the coolscan 4000 and 4.02 nikon scan software, I experienced crashes every 7 slides or so. Not so with the Coolscan 5000, nikon scan 4.02 running on an iMac with 2 gigs ram and sys 10.5.
I've easily bulk scanned 50 slides in a sitting without jam or crash. Now that I've tweaked my settings, the result have been excellent.
Right now I'm scanning kodachromes mostly. I would recommend
Digital Ice on (magically removes all scratches)
Enable Digital DEE shadow adj 40 highlight 10 threshold 100 (lightens dark shadows, drops highlights)
I am not using post processing ROC or GEM
Also in preferences make sure you set advance colr settings to a sample point size of 5x5 and drop contrast calculations to 0 for both black and white. This will prevent the auto contrast function from blowing out your highlights.
I also have auto focus and exposure on in my batch settings.
You will need to tweak the settings obviously depending on what you're scanning, but the above seem to work well for most of my batched images.
Good luck.
For those that have had problems with the 210 feeder jamming, I had a few hiccups at the outset but these calmed down after an hour or so. I think the spring loaded plate can put too much pressure on the right side of the slides causing the uppermost slide to catch on the one below. I put a small felt floor protector on the left side to minimize pressure on the right and enhance on the left and the problem disappeared. Since then, I've removed the pad and have not experienced a single jam scanning hundreds.
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 | HP L1910A#B1H Scanjet 5590 Digital Flatbed Scanner
Worked great for 5 months - then died! -- 2008-12-09
This scanner worked perfectly for the first 5 months. I probably scanned 3000 pages of stuff. Then all of a sudden I could not "initialize scanner". I use it with my MacBook Pro. The scanner shows up in my "About This Mac", just not in the HP software anymore. After navigating HP's voicemail jail for almost an hour, I gave up. Its almost like they want to prevent you from speaking with a real support person! I am ordering the Fujitsu Snapscan. It comes very highly recommended.
Scanner is completely unreliable -- 2008-09-08
This was a big disappointment to us. We've always insisted on HP printers in my company, and thought that their scanners would match the printers quality, but that hasn't been the case for us. This scanner is used on a daily basis for numerous small multipage jobs. It randomly stops communicating with the computer it is connected to, requiring IT support to visit on an almost daily basis. It is far too unreliable for us to continue using it. We are in the process of replacing it with another brand.
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 | Visioneer OneTouch 7300 USB Ultra-Slimline Flatbed Scanner
Fair scanner for the price -- 2008-10-05
I only ordered this product because I absolutely needed one and did not have a lot of cash at the time. What it does scan shows up nice and clearly, but the bottom inch or so of the scan area doesn't seem to want to scan usually. I end up having to push the paper up over the top and leave an inch of blank space at the bottom so that I actually get the bottom portion of the paper to scan. It didn't do this the first couple times, so I'm not sure what the problem is. However, It was pretty cheap as far as scanners go, and it's thin and lightweight and very simple to use. It should be noted that I only scan assignments for class, all in black and white and not any photos. I'm not sure how well it operates for those conditions.
Scanner works good -- 2008-03-03
I bought this scanner and I am really amazed by the software it has. It is easy to use, reliable and extremly fast. I am very happy with its performance. It can run continuously for about an hour and produce 50 to 60 copies.
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 | Xerox DocuMate 510
Fantistic, perfect -- 2008-12-02
I am converting my office to digital. I have purchased two prior scanners that could not handle the volume. The Xerox DocuMate 510 enables me to scan boxes of closed files with efficience. For the price it is more than a I had thought possible.
Horrible in every way; complete junk. -- 2008-06-05
Jeez, where to start here. First of all, the price is ridiculously high, even for an item like this that actually works. This one doesn't work, unfortunately.
A. No Mac drivers available anywhere on the internet, even though it has been out around 4 years now. I have a PC also so I used it on that.
B. First 7-8 scans O.K., and then several lines down the middle of all the rest.
I put it back in the box and took it back to the store. End of saga. It's hard to believe that this is such a total pile of junk considering the price, but as others have said this isn't made by Xerox. It's a re-badged Visioneer model, and a crappy one at that.
Don't waste your time or money.
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 | HP ScanJet 8250 Document Scanner
HP Scanjet 8250 -- 2008-12-20
I purchased this scanner as used. Received it with no instructions or manual and have yet been able to use it as anticipated. It may be a good item but based on what I experienced I would not recomment it at all.
Got it for the Duplex ADF -- 2008-11-18
I got this scanner because I wanted the duplex ADF so I could archive a couple shelves worth of documents. Has been working great. I was actually quite impressed with the software and the options available. The searchable PDF for a document form is perfect - It automatically adjusts for landscape documents and inserts them in the PDF appropriately. The majority of typed text is recognized and converted to copy and pastable text which was a huge bonus. I bought mine as a used/off lease machine and haven't seen any downsides to that yet. My only beef is that when using duplex mode it takes 3-4 times longer to do a double sided document vs two single sided documents (but this sure beats having to manually flip the pages)
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 | HP ScanJet 7650 Flatbed Scanner with Auto Document Feeder (L1940A#B1H)
Decent Enough. . . -- 2008-08-04
I've been using this device for about 12 months now and I'm happy enough with it. Perhaps in the future, I might try this product which seems to get stellar reviews:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000YA1XVG/ref=nosim/gizmodo-20
Yes, it does seem to jam a lot, and when it does, it does seem to be a pain to get it out, depending on where it is. But for the hundreds of documents I scan in, mainly office papers, it does the work well enough.
It creates searchable PDFs, and I simply scan in a document through the ADF, and it creates a file, subbed by the month, and I'm able to later search the documents by the month.
I also use the flat bed for documents that are strangely shaped, or look as though they won't fit the feeder, but those are rare for me.
Overall, I'm happy with it, but I do wish I got the item I linked to above instead, because I don't think I would've expected as much for only $260. For the price of about $460 that I paid for this. . . I think we all expected less hassle with jams. . .
Does not work on Vista! -- 2008-07-25
If you are running vista, save your money! Do not buy this scanner!!! Tech support will get it to print to their crappy software, but your computer will not recognize the driver. You will not be able to use it with any purchased software.
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 | Microtek ScanMaker i320 High-Resolution Flatbed Scanner
A great scanner for the money -- 2006-11-06
I'm a professional web site designer and as such I do a lot of scanning. Most of the scans I do are reduced in size and optimized for the web. While I don't need real high resolution scans, the image quality must be such that they can be reduced and yet remain sharp. This has proven to be a great scanner for this type of work. If you really need high end scans, you wouldn't be looking in this price range anyway. I am a Photoshop professional, but it takes time to correct each picture. The scanner's software cleans and restores color well enough to save me a considerable amount of time.
This isn't the scanner I'd pick if I did a lot of slide or negative work, but for general purpose scanning, it works fine. The software has a standard mode and an advanced mode. If you invest a little time learning how to enhance the scans, you will be amazed at the results you can get.
Microtek Flatbed Scanners -- 2006-07-31
Please Note: I purchased a somewhat different model - 6100 Pro - over 1 year ago. I was unhappy with the purchase from the onset and have subsequently purchased a Canon 8400F ... a great scanner.
The Microtek took very good scans from photos and film (35 mm slides). However, it rarely worked. It failed to recognize my computer and when I finally achieved a good scan it just stopped. Eventually, I convinced Microtek to replace the scanner however, the same problem recurred. I tossed the Microtek and bought a Canon.
I could not recommend Microtek for a mid level flatbed scanner. In addition their customer technical service department is courteous, but they are almost impossible to contact.
If you want a flatbed scanner in the $250 to $550 range you should look elsewhere.
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 | Epson Expression 10000XL- Graphic Arts Scanner
Very good large format scanner -- 2008-06-08
I would have given this 5 stars if it had had a page feeder. Although in my case not a necessity, still it would have been a nice feature given the price of this unit. It's EXPENSIVE!
The scanner itself does exactly what I require of it. It takes great scans of large items and offers many filter and scanning options including software that permits multiple scans without requiring one to call up the Twain driver after every scan. I have over 300 LP covers that I'd like to scan and now I can do each in one pass. It will be invaluable for me to be able to keep up with the flow of my daughter's countless larger art pieces (yes I'm a doting digital dad). The Epson XL10000 is just what the doctor ordered.
(FYI: My older Epson Perfection series scanner came with software to permit multiple scans when installed on an XP box, but on my new Vista box, this feature is no longer supported by Epson. I did manage to find software to enable multiple scans. Since I'm on the XP box at the moment and not on the Vista box, I don't recall the software product name, but think it might have been something like Smart Scan.)
Epson makes great (if overpriced) scanners and printers. I've never had a problem with any Epson device in the 20 years I've been using them.
If you need the size and can afford the cost of admission, this is your ticket to great large format scans.
THE BEST -- 2008-05-09
THE BEST QUALITY SO FAR .... THE SCANS ARE SUPERB !! THE WAY TO GO , WITH EPSON
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