I have been looking at different scanners for the past week and have found that it is very difficult to make a decision on the best one. Most (about 95%) of scans will be of photos and will store the photos onto CD and/or print them out on a dye-sub printer. Not only will I be scanning a lot of prints but negatives and slides too. The prints range in size of up to 8.5x11 and the negatives range in all sizes, some of the glass negatives are larger than 4x5.

A big problem that I have encountered though is that the glass negatives I have do not work on any of the negative or slide scanners I have seen. I contacted some companies on their flatbed transparency adapters and many of them say that it will work. In addition, these glass negatives will need a lot of cleaning up and I can't do it by hand because if you wipe the surface the image will go away so software that can help clean the image of the scratches, dirt, and dust would be nice.

I don't have a large budget but I am willing to spend around $800 on a scanner with a transparency adapter and a good bundle of software. Scanners that I have been looking at include the Microtek Scanmaker 4, Epson Expression 636 and 800, UMAX Powerlook II and IIIse, and HP 6200C. I need some help on which scanner I should choose for these jobs that is around $800. Thanks for your help.

-- Thomas Vick (TVick959@aol.com), March 21, 1999

Answers

I really don't know much about the subject, but I hear lots of people raving about the HP photosmart scanner.

-- Benoit (foo@bar.com), March 24, 1999.