Canon CanoScan LiDE 30

...when she went for the Canon Canoscan LiDE 30. We must have all heard of Canon, they are Japanese company, specialists in producing imaging and optical products, and have been around since 1933. Maybe you didn't know they originally had the name "Kwanon"!!

** Box Contents **
I remember the old scanner I used to have going back a few years, huge it was, so was somewhat taken aback when I opened the box, it's apparently ...
...priced just under that mark. Canon offer other models in the range, the LiDE 20 (under £40) and LiDE 50 (over £60). These alternatives generally differ by only a few specifications, so consider your needs before you decide.

** Conclusion **
I'm quite impressed, and it takes a bit to impress me. It's been a doddle to learn, not just for me but for my partner too. So far I've been able to scan a wide range of documents and images ... more

The other half had been going on about a scanner for sometime, before she finally went on a mad shopping spree the other day, and came back with a scanner (amongst other things). Don't women love to shop. Thankfully though, I think she made a wise decision when she went for the Canon Canoscan LiDE 30. We must have all heard of Canon, they are Japanese company, specialists in producing imaging and optical products, and have been around since 1933. Maybe you didn't know they originally had the name "Kwanon"!!

** Box Contents **
I remember the old scanner I used to have going back a few years, huge it was, so was somewhat taken aback when I opened the box, it's apparently one of the worlds smallest flatbed scanners, well it fits nicely on top of the PC without hanging off anyway. So apart from the rather small scanner packed securely inside polystyrene, what else is in the box? Well quite a lot, and quite a lot of things you don't need too. First there are two rather large 150+ page "Quick Start Guides". Don't be alarmed, the size is due to the 16 different languages they are printed in, a waste of trees if you ask me. There are no less than four more separate sheets of paper in other languages, plus two that are actually in English, including the safety precautions and the warranty information.

In addition there are two CD's, again one of no use, unless you are either Italian, Dutch or some other nationality. A USB cable is also provided, as is a stand which enables you to use the scanner vertically if you so wish. So discarding the waste, you are left with a more manageable set of paperwork and the installation disk which is for either Windows or Mac. You'll soon realise the huge quick start guide really only contains 14 pages of information, much of which is pretty basic. The more detailed information is located on the CD itself in the form of PDF documents.

** Quick Tour **
This is a 1200x2400dpi optical resolution colour flatbed scanner, remarkably compact measuring 25.7 cm in width, 38.4 cm depth and a a paltry height of just 3.3 cm. It's also very light at just 1.5kg. It supports 64K grey levels and 48 bit colour scanning (apparently reproducing up to 281 trillion colours, although I've not counted). The interface is a high speed USB 2.0, but will work with the older slower USB too, on both PC and Mac.

It features the Z-Lid expansion top which lifts 2.5cm high but remains flat to allow you to scan 3d objects and books easily. It uses Canons QARE 2.0 (Quality Automatic Retouching and Enhancement) to remove dirt, dust and scratches without you even caring. It's grey in colour and has just 3 buttons at the front, which are programmable by using the software - essentially they launch different applications, so enough said about those.

** Installation and test scan **
You can use the quick start guide, or like me you can guess. It really is very quick and easy. Insert the CD, follow the prompts, install the software. Peel off the packing stickers from the scanner, push the unlock switch on the back, connect the USB cable. There's no additional power block required (power taken via the USB), which in a world full of power blocks is a godsend. The technical stuff (hardly) complete, open the scanner lid, put a photo or book, magazine whatever you fancy face down, shut the lid again.

Load up the ArcSoft PhotoStudio software (which initiates ScanGear), select the scanner (you only do this once), hit the scan (acquire) button, then click preview. This bit is quite quick, a full A4 preview taking about 15 seconds or so. You'll now see the document appear on the screen. The software automatically senses what is document and what is not, and selects it. In 99% of cases it gets this right, on odd occasions, you might need to adjust it - but this takes seconds. Happy with the preview, click the scan button - and in less than 60 seconds for an A4 document at the default settings, the scan is complete.

** More Advanced Scanning **
In "simple" mode, scanning is very quick, and generally the reproduction on the screen is satisfactory for most uses. The advanced settings however allow you to fine-tune the scanning process for those more important documents. Settings that can be changed include the output resolution, and anywhere from 75 - 1200dpi can be selected.

Selecting the 1200dpi option might seem sensible at first (biggest is best), however there aren't many documents which require it, and at six and a half minutes per scan, and a file of possibly 400Mb or more - don't bother! I tried this once and gave up waiting for the ArcSoft PhotoStudio to respond, and we've an extremely powerful PC. The online manual provides some useful advice on choosing a suitable resolution depending on it's intended use. A scanning resolution of 75dpi is perfectly suitable for display on a monitor, although higher will be required for printing, especially at larger sizes.

Paper size can be adjusted to be more suitable for scanning postcards, business cards etc, and colour mode can be changed to accommodate B&W, grayscale or various colour types of scanning. Filter options include De-screen which can eliminate moiré in magazine scans and Un-sharp mask which helps to enhance the crispness of a slightly fuzzy image. Many other options are included such as "always remove white borders" or "always perform auto-tone".

There are also four levels of dust and scratch removal, including none. Scratch removal can be very useful on really bad images, however it does also reduce sharpness considerably. It may be better to use this option after scanning is complete, and only on areas of the images which need this applying. Brightness, contrast and gamma correction can all be controlled, and the ability to improve under/over exposed photographs too. Settings can be saved and reloaded at any time, and defaults can be re-installed. The output file can be set to Jpeg, Bmp, Pict, Png, TIFF or even PDF. There's little point in going into detail with all these options and settings, suffice to say they are there for those who wish to experiment a little, and all are described in detail within the user guide.

** Multiple scans
A clever software feature is the ability to scan lots of small documents (ie ticket, passport photos etc) in one scan pass. Instead of selecting preview and scan, select Multiscan. Here you can change the quality and type of image you are scanning. It set it the task of scanning 10 small items, tickets and so on - with somewhat odd results. Whilst it generated 10 separate images (what it's designed to do), it hadn't correctly cropped each one out. Five out of the ten were correctly cropped, the other five were a bit of a muddle. Adding insult to injury, I couldn't do anything with the images as the software had locked up. Attempts to re-scan resulted in a Twain error. Rebooting and trying second attempt without moving the tickets from the scanner resulted in a completely different set of scans....9 files were generated, but this time only 3 were correctly cropped - but no crash this time. So although this feature looks useful it doesn't actually work too well - not in my tests anyway.

** Optical Character Recognition (OCR) **
To be honest, I hadn't hoped much for it's OCR ability, my last experience with software of this type was in truth rubbish. The software provided with the scanner is called Scansoft OmniPage SE, and quite a comprehensive package it is too.

Those not familiar with the term OCR, what this basically means is scanning a document as a graphic and automatically turning it into "Text", for use in a word processor or web for instance. What the OCR software does it look at the graphic as a whole and scan it for what it thinks are individual characters, and words. The software needs to be able to recognise different type faces, sizes, underlined text and so on - it's not an easy job.

I'll use the wizard to take you through a scan, although you can select manual methods too. First you can select B&W, Grayscale or Colour depending on the document you are scanning. You then select the type of document ie, single column, magazine with multiple columns etc or you can let the software decide. Next select the language the document is in. There are a huge amount of languages to choose from, including Swedish which is useful for me. Next is a choose of either Fast OCR, or more accurate. Personally I'd rather have an accurate reading than a page of gibberish, so I'll choose Accurate. Now you can choose to retain page formatting, either loosely or as near as possible or just have plain text. Next you have the option to proofread after the scan (or not), this is always a good idea. Finally you can choose to paste the results to clipboard or save to a document, saving is safer. Scanning then takes place, and will take just over 60 seconds on a full A4 page.

You should now get a reasonably readable document previewed. The dictionary will pop up with any words it doesn't recognise, much like the spellcheck in Word for instance. You can choose to correct words, ignore or add them. Once finished, the document can be saved in Text, Word or a choice of other formats. The number of "suspect words" depends on the quality of the original scan, so a perfectly magazine article should be very trouble free. I am quite stunned at the accuracy on the various documents I've tried so far, printouts, magazines etc have all been wonderfully re-produced with very little effort. There are however a whole host of settings which can be changed once you get a little bit more experienced - although it's not compulsory.

** Post-processing in PhotoStudio 5 **
Whilst you can initiate the ScanGear software from pretty much any image processing program (TWAIN-compliant), such as PaintShop Pro, PhotoShop etc, the inclusion of PhotoStudio allows many functions to play around with your scanned images. I was lost at first, as the manual for this software does not seem to be installed initially. I found this on the CD, it's also available to registered users via the Arcsoft website. It's an 80+ page manual, and well worth finding.

The package itself can load and save in a wide range of format. The range of options is too broad to go into here, but includes features such as red-eye reduction, cutting and pasting, cloning, borders, labelling, image enhancement, stitching, plus many special effects such as melting, mosaic, ripple etc - you get the idea. There are more advanced options such as layering and macros for more professional use. The fact that a 80+ manual can be written about this software will give you an idea of the wide range of features on offer. Output to a printer is a covered well with the ability to print pictures in any size and any place on the page. Registering the software on-line will give you access to free updates and other offers.

** PhotoBase 3 **
Again, I had to find the PhotoBase manual on the CD, as it wasn't installed automatically. The manual for this is just 17 pages, so a much simpler program. This is essentially an application which allows you to effectively organize, manage and present all your multimedia files. Features such as the ability to create online photo albums, slideshows onto CD, and print contact sheets are all included. You can use the program to capture scanned images in the same way as with PhotoStudio, and also capture video if you have the necessary hardware.

Some basic image enhancement features are available such as cropping, re-sizing, red-eye removal etc, but this is not the point of the software. Creating a slideshow is a useful feature, and very easy it is to create one too. Simply select the images or other multimedia files you want in your slideshow, add an audio track (if you want) then either burn to CD or save to the hard drive - it's all very quick and simple. Creating a web-album is just as easy, select the photos you want, select from various layout and size options, and save it - the code is generated for you ready to upload to your Internet site. Printing contact sheets and generating video postcards is equally easy - so there's nothing else to say about it!

** Price, Availability & Alternatives **
To be honest I find the price ridiculously cheap, at only £40 from Pixmania. Other suppliers vary, but pay no more than £50 for one, PC World and Dabs being priced just under that mark. Canon offer other models in the range, the LiDE 20 (under £40) and LiDE 50 (over £60). These alternatives generally differ by only a few specifications, so consider your needs before you decide.

** Conclusion **
I'm quite impressed, and it takes a bit to impress me. It's been a doddle to learn, not just for me but for my partner too. So far I've been able to scan a wide range of documents and images without any trouble (with the exception of multi-scanning). The colours have been pretty close to the originals, which is important - compliments to Canon on this. It doesn't take much fiddling to get good results - brilliant. It's unobtrusive, as well as being tiny, I could scan at midnight and not wake the neighbours, it's quiet enough. The software bundle is actually useful and feature rich. And the price - well that's just ridiculous...

Further information can be obtained on the Canon website, www.canon.com 

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