My wife and I are looking for a scanner that will provide good quality images for scanned photos and some older documents. She wants to be able to scan old photos so that they can be cleaned up with Photoshop and she can keep them with her geneology research.

I am interested in what others do in this regard and what type of scanner they may be using. Reviews on the net are just too confusing and, of course, dealers will try and sell you a higher priced model. The one thing I have learned is that $$ not equal to quality. Any insight that anyone cares to provide is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

WesternGuy

If you plan to only scan printed photos and documents, you don't need a fancy flatbed and there isn't much reason to buy any more than a basic $70-$100 scanner from Canon or Epson. If you need to scan films, too, then the choice becomes more complicated. You will have to then figure out what size films you have and search for a scanner that adapts to all of those formats.

Good luck,
Doug

Thanks Doug. Good to know I don't have spend big bucks.

WesternGuy

WesternGuy, I'd be interested to hear what you end up getting for a scanner and how it turns out for you. I'll be in the market for one soon but, it'll be on a budget. Right now I'm leaning towards a the Canon 8600f. Please keep us posted on your findings :)

Aaron

Aaron, when I checked requirements with my wife she said "YES I want to be able to scan slides" -- so the whole thing changed. After checking reviews on the web, it would appear the the Canon 8600F will be the one we buy. It got excellent reviews from Consumer Reports and it is the lowest priced, highest quality unit that scans documents, photos, slides and films. We will check it out tomorrow at one of our local camera stores. I will keep you posted on how it turns out.

Cheers,

WesternGuy

Just a couple of tips in this area WesternGuy. My wife also does geneology, and has for a number of years.

I have a flatbed scanner, and use it on occasion. However, when we started archiving, I would scan a photo AND re-photograph it with the DRebel in Raw mode. More often than not, the Raw photos ended up retouching better than the scanned photos. It also came in handy for tintypes, which don't lend themselves easily to a scanner. But the real benefit is the 16bit digital negative for archiving.

I've now got to the point where I've constructed a frame for the camera to facilitate these types of uses.

Also, if you're going to be retouching any of these photos, I would suggest looking into a book called Photoshop Restoration & Retouching, by Katrin Eisman. Although the book is geared toward Photoshop (obviously), the information within is applicable to most post-processing software.

Lastly, here's a link to a site called RetouchPRO. I can't claim to have used it much, but whenever I needed an expert opinion, that's where I found the experts: http://www.retouchpro.com/

Hope this helps.

- Joe U.

Joe, thanks for the insight and the advice. Will experiment with the RAW input once we get a scanner. Right now, we have decided to look at the Canon 8600F as it has excellent reviews and scans photos, documents and slides which is what my wife wants to be able to do.

Thanks for the link -- it is amazing what is out there on the net!!

WesternGuy

hi Guys

I'd be interested to hear what you end up getting for a scanner.Canon 8600F will be the one we buy. It got excellent reviews from Consumer Reports and it is the lowest priced, highest quality

Well we got the Canon 8600F and have it up and running (no problems) :D .Scanned a few B & W photos and got excellent results. :thumbsup: Did some OCR and ported it into Word - so far so good. Colour was a bit different, but then we scanned a 3x5 colour photo into the computer at 300 dpi and then when you bring it up on the monitor at twice the size you lose some of fidelity or image quality, but that is not the scanner's fault. Still have to try slides yet.

The other thing we discovered is that it will work with Photoshop Elements 3 and 4. Actually comes with a copy of PSE 4 for Windows and a copy for a Mac. :thumbsup:

I would say this is a keeper, my wife just has to learn about the technology which is completely new to her and it will take a while to test it out thoroughly.

Cheers,

WesternGuy

Sweet, thanks for the update :) Sounds good so far. Any chance you could post a 100% crop when you get some slides scanned at full resolution? I'd be interested to hear if any issues arise in the coming weeks as it will be a bit before I can pick one up.