Are you in need of a good quality scanner and can't really afford it? Well here's your solution: This great Canon scanner scans good quality images and yet it is not expensive at all, and is suitable for both Windows and Mac users. You're probably wandering what the catch is, and you're right there is one. This scanner is relatively slow at scanning images into the computer - and that is all - that's the catch. Pathetic really, when you think about it. The preview scan time takes approximately 16 seconds so a normal scan, depending on what resolution you've got it on should take from anything from 30 seconds. Now some people think this is really slow, but in fact it isn't really. Half a minute? Almost no time at all. Although, half a minute at 300dpi resolution, but if you want a 600dpi resolution picture, then the time may shoot upto anything between one and three minutes although, it's not as if you have to wait half an hour for one scan, and i always use my scanner at 300dpi for photos, and even less resolution for text. I recommend this scanner because it is a great price and great quality although i don't think you should buy it if you are an impatient person.Canon is a well known adn respectable company and i would never expect them to bring out a rubbish product so you can totally rely on them. This scanner is awesome - hardly take up and room at all on my computer desk and it's a flatbed scanner meaning that it is flat surprisingly, and really is slim. The previous scanner that i had was a ridiculous 6 centimetres thick but this one is a mere 3.8cm. Canon have been great for releasing such fantastic products in these past years, from
digital cameras, camcorders, and other electrical goods and now scanners. The Canon CanoScan LiDE 25 is a must buy package, offering relatively slow scanning (although it's not really that slow) and bundled with a simple photo editor which is great if your completely new to photo editing and a special edition OCR application. However it handles photographs amazingly well for the bargain price of £35, and also you have the ability to colour restore on pictures which have faded slightly. It seriously is a great bargain and it has the batch scan option, and a great design as you would all probably agree. Your probably wandering what the specifications are and here they are:
º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤ºTHE SPECIFICATION¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤
Maximum Optical Resolution: ....................................................................................................1200 pixels
The one touch buttons make it so much more easier to scan images - it saves you the hassle of opening up a program and finding the file menu of where the scan option is, but this scanner has simple buttons on the front for easy usage. The scan area is of letter size which is easily capable of scanning in A4 images as well- great for photocopying in my opinion. It's optical scan resolution is upto 2400dpi (dots per inch) x 1200 dpi. This resolution is more than enough what is needed to scan in photos and text. If you want to scan in photographs and print them off and hand them out to family and friends, this scanner will do the job; the scanner may lose some finer detail in the picture but it is hardly noticeable so that's nothing to worry about.
The scanner is very easy to use, starting with the driver, which offers the options between a simple interface for easy scanning and an advanced interface with more control. Your one-touch buttons found on the front of your printer are assigned to the following ArcSoft PhotoStudio, your e-mail program, and your printer, which is similiar to the majority of other scanners. Once you've scanned your image in, a great feature is that you can save the file directly as a PDF file. For those of you who are unaware of PDF files you may have come accross them as read only documents opened in Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Because of the incredibly low price you should of course be expecting a minimalistic package. The scanner is a basic flatbed scanner supplied with two software programs. One of which is a simple and easy to use photo editor and the other wchich is a special edition optical character recognition program. But still, it is a fantastic home scanner for the most basic and common uses and is a great value for money.
Not only is the scan quality really good, but it was the software application which surprised me at how good it was at perfecting photographs- even faded ones. As previously mentioned, it's great feature is the colour restoration which brings the faded photographs back to life and they will look almost brand new. The application also has a dust removal feature which simply removes specks of dust from the scanned image and there is also a backlight correction; This basically brings out the detail in the dark areas of the photograph making the image much more brilliant in its quality. It's a magnificent program if you're new to photo editing, rathere than jumping into other sotware such as Adobe Photoshop which i recommend for the more advanced photo editors. Although, there is one really good program which can be found online, and it is in fact Google Picasa which can be found on the google website: http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/options/
The batch scan feature is very good, and what it does is that it allows you to multiple scan. For example if i were to put 2 A5 photographs into the scanner, i could tell the computer to scan those two images seperately by selecting the two different areas. Otherwise, the scanner would just think that the 2 photographs you just put in was just 1 large picture. It makes it much quicker to scan in photographs if you want to send them to your friends by email. Although i do recommend you just buy a digital camera which makes life so much more easier. I mainly use my scanner for copying text and use it as a photocopier.
The other software bundled with this scanner is ScanSoft OmniPage SE 2.0. This is basically a simpler version of a text recognition software, for example, it reads Times new Roman and Arial almost perfectly even in a size 8 font. If you put a computer typed letter into your scanner, with this program, your scanner ahs the ability to scan the image and convert it into a text file with the same layout which actually is very useful at times. Can't find your CV on your computer and need it to apply for a job online?, but got a paper copy? Well this software is great for things like that.
I highly recommend this scanner and i have seen it for £35 at www.pixmania.co.uk/ If you would like a faster scanner you would probably have to pay a bit more for the Canon CanoScan LiDE 60 model which will be priced at approximately £45 which i think i have seen on the currys website: www.currys.co.uk/
Thanks for reading my review and hope you can rate it well and leave positive feedback. I would most appreciate it if you coul dhave a look at some of my other recent reviews. Thank you.
º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤ºMIGHTYD¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Jul 6th, 2006
exceptional by (3%):
very helpful by (97%):
