Scanners > Minolta Scanners

Advantages: good quality, lots of editing features, produces up to A3.
Disadvantages: slow, requires more time to edit than your digi photos, glitchy software.

Despite being in the digital age i still have slides and negatives that need 'digitising'. After careful consideration i decided on the 5400. Its tech spec and reviews said it all. After the first install i encountered a problem. The second install was fine. But the software has a few glitches. With my Apple (running OSx 10.4) and Windows XP machines i decided to use the software with Adobe Photoshop elements. This came with the scanner. Sometimes ...
...an error - and i'd have to restart the computer. This happened a few times. Once reloaded it worked fine. The scanner software, coupled with Elements, had plenty of features for tuning up the photographs. Although the scanner does a very good job with colours and contrast, its not perfect. You will almost certainly need to edit them afterwards. Depending on your editing skills the end result was, usually, pleasing. Though, for the price i paid (the ... Read review

Advantages: A fine scanner at a budget price.
Disadvantages: Yet anotherthing to plug into your PC!

...years ago I bought a Minolta Dimage Scan Dual II brand new. These can now be found on Ebay for £100 or so and offer a fine machine at a rather more affordable price. The results I've had are truly superb, with fine detail and subtlties of colour faithfully reproduced. The Scan Dual II is a machine capable of scanning 35mm and APS (with optional adaptor) negatives with an output resolution of up to 2820dpi. This is more than enough to produce images ...
...slides. The drivers and Minolta Scan Utility software are supplied on a CD on which you will also find a 109 page User Guide in PDF format. There is also a Quick Reference Guide in paper form to get you started. The software lets you control such things as scan resolution, final image size etc. It also lets you choose between colour negative, black and white negative and colour positive (slides). OPERATION If you buy secondhand the supplied copy ... Read review

Advantages: Sooooo many features
Disadvantages: None that I can think of

We use the CanoScan Lide 25 (which I'll refer to as Lide 25 from now on) at work and a handy little scanning tool it is indeed. It's very slim and lightweight and sits nicely on my desk, ready to jump into action whenever I need to scan a document or photo. You can copy directly from the platen (glass screen) to your printer or print or even email and it's very easy to set up. AN ABUNDANCE OF FEATURES The Lide 25 uses a USB connection so ...
...handy indeed - saving on energy is always a better option. Unlike other home scanners I've used in the past the Lide 25 scans to a fairly high resolution of up to 1200 x 2400 dpi so when scanning photos you get very good quality images. The software that comes with the scanned allows you to scan documents to PDF too and you choose whether you want them in colour or monochrome or select the image quality you want from 75, 100, 200, 250, 300 or 400 ... Read review