Scanners - What to Choose

[PPRuNe Towers]

To add the excellent advice above:

Why pay more than the basic budget model? I would only do this if the more expensive model offered significantly more - covering your needs and your needs alone. We don't meet in pubs fighting over bragging rights concerning scanners and printers................

I'd buy a more expensive one if I knew I'd be scanning pages from books - a more complex and versatile hinge mechanism is needed.

I'd pay more for speed - usb 2 or firewire.

I'd pay a little more if it comes with Adobe's excellent Photoshop Elements - the disk covers both PC and Mac.

I wouldn't pay more for slide/negative scanning - if you have a large library of negs and trannies a purpose made scanner is vastly superior but comes in at around the 400 quid mark. This is buttons compared to your outlay on camera[s] and film stock - why ruin the quality while digitising them?

I wouldn't pay for a document feeder.

For the average and wise user you're far better off with a basic model and spend the rest on inkjet cartridges and photo quality paper. Running costs kill not buying the hardware.

Regards
Rob

PS Kodak has just bought Scitex - a name well known to the graphics aware - scanning products at the Rolls Royce end of the market. I'd expect them to be wanting to expand the sales base by putting high end scanners into the photo processing market rather than just reprographics. I'd imagine seeing offers to scan and digitise your old film archive at very high quality in the next year or so. Kodak have had a taste of the potential with their link to Mac software. Click one button and you can order not just prints but entire bound photo albums.