I bought this scanner around a year ago. So it's unlikely that this model is still available new now, but you may come across one second hand, and because of this fact this review may be of some help.
After buying this current computer, Windows XP pro, most of the old hardware previously used by my old 98 SE set up wouldn't work on here as the stuff was not digitally signed. So this was a good excuse to go out and buy a new scanner !.
Have always been interested in photography (remember the times before digital !? ), and have hundreds of tatty old piccies that have been thumbed through, used as coasters, lost, damaged, given to people etc,etc. Spent a lot of time on my old set up rescanning damaged pics' to try and tart them up a bit, ( with some not very good results
) But we can all find a pristine set of negs, these can be inserted into a special adapter to bring all those lost & damaged pics' back to life.
The 3570 c is a quality piece of kit, the first thing you'll notice is the shiney see through lid, with attractive blue pattern, the lid is heavy, as is the rest of the machine, ( for me , if something I buy weighs a fair bit , I recon It's worth it's money ? ) If you're going to spend £100 odd on your new toy ..... you want build quality. If it's too light it must be cheap? ( just add some lead weights to it ...and I'll buy it !! ).
Out of the box , you'll find .. the scanner comes with its own power supply, USB lead, and software set up CD. The CD provides the signed drivers, HP photo & imaging director. Once set up and connected, an icon is placed on the desk top for easy access to the scanner functions. This is in the form of the HP director. A blue box will appear containing 5 options. These are,..... Scan pic',.....scan document,..... make copies,.....view & print,..... help. Similar options are on the front of the scanner, in the form of real buttons , to press. Before scanning your first pic' it's a good idea to choose the resolution needed, as this will affect the size of the file and the quality.
This resolution is in the form of ( ppi ) which ranges from 75... to 19200 ! , generally I find 100 - 200 fine for pic scans, and upping the res' to between 300 - 600 ppi for negs', higher resolutions take longer,(depending on your processor speed and available RAM .) Film negatives slot into a special adapter that slides into the lid. Negs' have to be selected from the options before the scan starts, but sadly only 2 at a time. But the pleasure gained from seeing that long lost pic' again , will be worth the effort !.
It's a good idea to wipe the large glass area under the lid before a scan to avoid particles of dust / dirt being reproduced on the image. In the case of images to be scanned, I usuall try to line them up as square as possible , this also saves time later in using the software to line up crooked results. Warm up time for the scanner's lamp, I find , a bit on the slow side.
Image results produced are of a high quality. Final results will obviously depend on the how good your original pics' were, ....... rubbish in .... rubbish out !, but depending on what image processing software you prefer using , everything can be improved, and cleaned up. Having said that , I've scanned some old negs' and compaired the results printed off, to some of the originals, and seen a huge improvement !
The software installed on my computer occupies a whopping 4,090 MB on the hard drive ! , but you have the options to edit, print in many different modes, or burn images to CD from HP's own setup. All your stored image files ( not just the scans )are available in the form of an explorer type tree. It is quite easy to click or drag any of these , open to view , select , then burn. Or use the basic colour, brightness, contrast, crop and email pics' functions included also.
Generally, I recon it's better to to all your processing in a dedicated photo program for best results.
I personally think that a good scanner should be an essential part of a good computer equipment setup. These things aren't used all the time, but when needed for certain tasks, you'll wish you'd bought one !
My scanner's first job was to produce perfect copies of old college / city & guilds certificates, training courses etc, important papers that I then laminated. The originals could be kept back in a safe place. The copies could then be used for display or reference , or what ever, your options are only limited by your own thoughts , you get the idea..........
exceptional by (6%):
very helpful by (94%):
