The software includes the scanner drivers, Quickscan, Lasersoft Silverfast Ai, Presto! PageManager, and Presto! ImagFolio.
The scanner itself is very small, being 27cm long, 11.5cm wide, and 12,5cm tall. The slides (mounted film) and negatives (film strip) are mounted in carriers, which are manually fed into either side of the body, through a drop-down flap. Two slide carriers are supplied, each holding up to 4 slides, and the single negative carrier can take up to 6 negatives. These carriers are 27cm long, so at least that amount of clearance is required each side of the scanner.
Controls on the scanner are the power button, Intelliscan and Quickscan buttons. A green LED indicates power status.
Setting up is quite simple, although there will be problems if you have another scanner connected to your computer. In this case the Plustek scanner will not be detected by its software, and will be totally unavailable. This applies if you have a multi-function printer with a scanner. It also applies if you have a network scanner or multifunction device not connected to your computer. Having the availability of another scanner is enough to upset the Plustek. I got around this by declaring the network MFP scanner unavailable in "my computer" "hardware". Both scanners are now usable.
The slides or negatives are placed in the carriers with the emulsion side downwards, and the carriers are fed into the scanner. They slide in smoothly, and are positively located by notches in the side rails.
Slides are scanned as they are, and negatives are colour reversed by the software into positives, so it is best to concentrate on one type at a time.
The two operating modes are:
Quickscan, which will scan the film or negative with a range of resolutions from 600 dpi to 7200 dpi, and save it to hard disk using the supplied Presto! PageManager 6, which is an adequate image management program. This is useful if you wish to choose which pictures you want to keep, and develop further.
Intelliscan starts the Silverfast Ai iSRD program (v 6,4.2r7e, as I write) which has the ability to scan from 50 dpi right up to 24000 dpi. Both these resolutions are virtually useless, as 50dpi is a very poor resolution, and, at 24000dpi, the stored image will be over 2Gb! The scan can be from 48 bit colour to greyscale, with a set of filters (sharpen, descreening, sharpen and descreen, and GANE - grain and noise elimination). 11 preset image types are offered, together with a user defined option.
After the scan, the Silverfast iSRD software gets to work, removing scratches and dust, to give an enhanced image which can restore a damaged negative or slide.
Silverfast iSRD can remove imperfections from C41 processed colour or monochrome negatives, EB processed slides, and paper contact prints. Note that it cannot work with "conventional", non-C41 processed b&w negatives and slides due to the silver content, however, there is nothing to stop you manually editing the picture using the supplied ImageFolio software.
Presto! ImageFolio is a fairly comprehensive image drawing and modifying program.
Updates to the software are available at http://www.silverfast.com/ and http://www.plustek.com/uk/product/7200i.asp
Although the RRP is £199.99, the Plustek scanner is available at up to £30 less if you shop around, but, even at the full price, it is an excellent and very useful piece of hardware, especially when you have inherited a huge pile of old slides and negatives.
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great review - decent scanners are getting really cheap now so almost tempted to get this one. I've already scanned in my slides with a flatbed but the 35m negs are taking forever, especially when it comes to tweaking the output.
Mar 21st, 2007
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