I would like to scan slides to Cd's and have learned of the Prime Film Image 1800U scaner which is less than half the cost of HP S20 model.It scans at 1800 while Hp scans at 24. What is the overall assessment of this Pacific Image Electronics item?

-- Roland B. Peloquin (paideia@bitstorm.net), January 17, 2000

Answers

I bought the PS 1800U last week and have been evaluating it to decide whether to return it or not. I find that it works remarkably well with transparencies. Using default settings, it scans slides and produces color balances and sharpness that are quite acceptable. With a little manipulation, they get better. The problem comes when scanning negatives. I spent many hours trying different settings, talking to their tech help person and reading their manual. Negatives don't do well with this unit. They tend to be washed out, pick up noise or get weird color shifts. Some of them can be somewhat fixed in Photoshop but with a lot of manipulation. Preview scans take 25 seconds. Regular scans take about 70 seconds. Scans set to high quality take 130 seconds. My decision is to return the unit. If you just want to use it to scan slides for screen loads, it's great.

-- Jeff Houdret (houdret2@snip.net), March 24, 2001.