My Little Project - Part 1 - The Scanner

[DHR]

Afternoon!

A number of you may remember me explaining that I was embarking on a family photo archiving project. Well I'm officially starting it today, I've been looking more at scanners but want some opinions from people who have used them.

I'm scanning photos from the late 60s through to the 90s I’ve sadly been informed that many of the negatives have been thrown out which is sad however I know for a fact a number still exist so the option for a 35mm enabled scanner still exists the large majority of scans will be directly from the photos.

At the moment the Canon scanners look the best bet due to their QARE correction features, the biggest benefit of the Canon series would be the Multi Photo mode they boast. I'm a little curious to how well this works though.

I'm disappointed I’ve only found one scanner with a "Photo Door / Feeder" on it which is the older now discontinued HP Scan Jet 4070 Photo Smart Scanner, I was interested in this but it only takes photos in 6x4 format. Most of my photos will be that size but I wonder if its worth going for this and loosing the multi photo mode of the canon.

That's where I’m up to at the moment, I really need to find some decent feedback directly from users of these scanners. I'm starting to go strongly with the Canons though.

I've been looking at the following models does anyone have them? :-

• HP ScanJet 4070 PhotoSmart Scanner
  
• Canon CanoScan Lide 70 USB Scanner
  
• Canon CanoScan 4400F Scanner
  
• Canon Lide 25
  
• CanoScan LiDE 600F

Realistically my budget is going to be below £100 as usual though the cheaper the better.

 

[MarcLister]

I've got a Canon LiDE 50 and that is a stunning scanner for me. My old HP scanner neeed two cables, one power and one USB. The LiDE 50 has just the one USB2 cable.

I can really recommend the Canon LiDE scanner range. The scanners are nice and slim so good for minimal space. The software supplied is pretty decent too.

 

[hybrid]

I have about 6 Canon LiDE 25's at work?

 

[Deleted member 11679]

The Canon Lide 25 is an awesome scanner, however how applicable it will be for this task I would question somewhat, particularly because you talk about nagatives.

 

[DHR]

The Canon Lide 25 is an awesome scanner, however how applicable it will be for this task I would question somewhat, particularly because you talk about nagatives.

Providing I know that the multi photo feature works well - I presume its software based, I'd be happy. I'd probably go for the lide 70 looking at it....

I'd be incredibly happy if someone was good enough to do a scan of an image or two using this Multi Photo mode?

 

[whitecrook]

I have the lide 25 - it's OK for prints, but slow as hell. My SCSI HP 4p from early-mid ninties is faster.

If you are going to be scanning Film, GET A FILM SCANNER!! There is no 2 ways about it. You say you have a low budget, but I got a Nikon Coolscan III on the bay a while back for about 75 quid. The scans are pretty amazing, for a scanner a few years old. Put it this way - any dodgyness in the resulting digital image is down to the dodgyness in the neg itself, not the scanner.

The alternative is one on of the super duper fancy flatbeds that do film but: they cost a lot. slow as hell compared to an equivalent film scanner, and generally results are still better with a proper film scanner.


edit -

Reading your post again, you are archiving, so your biggest concern is probably image quality. Multi mode is pointless, it saves a couple of seconds cropping in photshop really, and you may find with the cheaper scanners that the quality isn't so good at the edges, so you may end up doing 1 photo at a time anyway. The canon dust removal software is pretty good I'll admit, but it does soften the images ever so slightly. Have you considered second hand?

 

[DHR]

Have you considered second hand?

Sure have, like I said the cheaper the better really. I can't see me having a use for it after this project is over and done with. The only reason I was considering the neg scanner originally was because i was under the impression that there would be negs with the photos, there sadly isn't

 

[Gungnir]

I've got the Canon 4400F. RE: the multi photo scanning mode, it works well 90% of the time.

I've found photos with wide white borders are prone to being cropped. Also, if I place small 2"x3" photos within an inch of a larger photo they sometimes get scanned as one image.

Stick to 3-4 photos max per scan with as much space between them as possible for best results.

Slide/Negative scanning works flawlessly

 

[whitecrook]

Sure have, like I said the cheaper the better really. I can't see me having a use for it after this project is over and done with.

In that case it doesn't really matter what you get. Look at it as a rental of sorts. Cost price - re-sale price = Real cost of scanner. You could get a £500 quid scanner, use it for a month, and sell it again for £400 - something like that may or not be worth it.