I reviewed and demonstrated Canon's CanonScan 8600F for a PC User Group and Newsletter last November and was VERY impressed.
Here's what the review said:
CanonScan 8600F
Having seen this new scanner in action at the November meeting when we put it though its paces to see how well it coped with all we could throw at it, to do a review is rather superfluous other than for me to say its definitely one of the most versatile and easy to use photographic scanners I’ve yet tested.
As a reminder of what I said during my demo here is Canon’s description of its capabilities.
Description
For professional results when time is precious, the CanonScan 8600F delivers. With ultra high-speed previews and FARE Level 3 saving hours of manual retouching, you’ll be free to get on with creating.
Features
4800 x 9600dpi, 48 bit colour depth
FAU (Film Adapter Unit) — 12 x 35mm film strip and 4 x 35mm slides
FARE (Film Automatic Retouching and Enhancement) Level 3 dust/scratch removal for film
Super-fast scan engine
Comprehensive software package with SilverFast SE
USB 2.0 Hi-Speed
7 EZ buttons
Fast Multi-photo mode
Performance scanning for the advanced user.
Professional quality. With a 4800 x 9600 dpi CCD sensor capturing incredible detail, the CanonScan 8600F delivers superb, crisp images suitable for enlargement and high-resolution printing. The 48-bit colour depth ensures your scans have exceptionally accurate colour reproduction.
Film scanning
The CanonScan 8600F is equipped with a versatile built-in film adapter unit (FAU), allowing you to scan 12 x 35mm negatives in a single operation. It can also take up to 4 mounted slides and 120 format film.
Automatic retouching. Using infrared scanning detection, FARE Level 3 technology automatically restores scratched, damaged or faded film to its former glory, saving hours of manual retouching. It also reduces graininess resulting from high speed film, and includes backlight compensation. QARE Level 3 performs the same functions for photo prints.
Ultra-fast scans. The CanonScan 8600F’s super fast scan engine optimises your productivity, providing previews in just 4 seconds. Even when scanning at maximum resolution, workflow remains efficient as the USB 2.0 Hi-Speed connection ensures speedy data transfer.
Powerful software. The CanonScan 8600F is bundled with a suite of powerful software tools that deliver outstanding functionality, performance and productivity. LaserSoft’s SilverFast SE gives you professional level control over the scan process, reducing the requirement for post scan image processing. Also included are the award winning Adobe PhotoShop Elements, for powerful image processing, and ScanSoft OmniPage SE for Optical Character Recognition. Canon’s ScanGear and CanonScan Toolbox have been upgraded to include better than ever image quality and functionality.
EZ buttons. Offering flexibility and saving you time, seven scan buttons provide one-touch operation of common scan tasks. Customise these to perform the functions you use most: copying, scanning, PDF file creation, or sending to your e-mail program. Four of the buttons are dedicated to scanning straight to PDF, including scanning in colour or mono.
Scan Multi-photos. The CanonScan 8600F further saves time with Canon’s fast Multi-Photo mode, which allows you to scan up to 10 separate images in a single pass, then work on each one separately. Multi-Photo automatically identifies, crops and straightens multiple images, even recognizing the type of original you use (film or photo).
Conclusions
What did I like most? The ability to scan documents, brochures, magazine articles and similar as PDF files. As my usual PDF creation application is Adobe’s Acrobat, I was very surprised at how well it did this. User input is minimal. Place the original document face down on the platen, select the EZ PDF button, colour button for colour PDFs, or Black and White (Greyscale) buttons if you want it in that format and off it goes and scans. When the first page has been scanned you’re asked whether you want to scan further pages etc. When you’ve finished, the PDF is created, saved to the location you select, given a file name like 0001.pdf and that’s it. Give it a better and recognisable file name as you wish, but retaining the .pdf extension — it’s remarkably simple and easy.
Scanning your photos or transparencies is just as easy and as an SE version of OmniPage Pro is bundled this makes OCR scanning and recognition painless and easy.
With its bundled software which includes Adobe Photoshop Elements 4.0, SilverFast SE, OmniPage Pro SE and first-rate optical performance, this scanner is in my opinion superb value for money.
Pricing and Availability
£137 from Amazon.co.uk
NB. As an example of how well the CanonScan 8600F scanned, I scanned in an over 50-year old 4in x 3in print of London Heathrow taken from the air, the contrast and brightness of which had deteriorated over the years. I enhanced the scanned image using Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo XI and the photo itself can be seen at:
http://groups.msn.com/TonyHawesRAFSe...o&PhotoID=1060
PM me if you'd like a copy of the newsletter containing the review in question (16-pages in PDF format, 2Mb in size).
Tony