Canon CanoScan 9900F Scanner

Rating:
Summary: Mac users beware:nice scanner, terrible software, no support
Review: I assumed that, having a Firewire interface, this scanner would have really good Mac OS X support. Boy was I wrong. The CD came with no obvious installer, but a bunch of unintuitively named installers deep inside folders with no clues about the order of installation. I was able to download better installers from Canon's web site, but even so, the installation was painful. The installer would actually install another installer and then launch Internet Explorer to give you instructions on what to do next. There were several pieces of software to install, each one using this Byzantine method. At least the instructions in IE were clear.

The scanner driver is quite bad. The layout of the interface is poor (not to mention ugly) and the software sucks up all available CPU power when idle (strangely, CPU power goes down to 5 or 10% during scanning). Also, the installers load daemons that watch for button presses on the front of scanner. These suck up 5 or 10% of the CPU when the scanner is disconnected and output error messages continually to the system log files (they to grow to hundreds of megabytes and it becomes very difficult to find anything useful in them.)

Now, scanner software has a reputation for being bad and I just assumed that if Canon's were terrible I would buy the fantastic VueScan shareware program. I should have done my homework: Canon uses a proprietary communication protocol with this scanner, so it will only work with THEIR awful software. I recommend checking carefully and only buying TWAIN scanners, unless you KNOW the software that the scanner comes with is good.

Finally, I keep having a problem where, in the middle of a scan, the driver tells me that it has lost communication with the scanner and to check the cable. Once this happens, only a reboot will restore communication. Disconnecting the scanner, power cycling it, changing the cable, etc have no effect.

I sent tech support queries to Canon several times about these problems and never received a response.

On the hardware side, the negative scanner insert is pretty flimsy (though it hasn't broken yet) and does not hold the negatives flat. The lid does not quite close all the way. I usually have to put a small book on it to get it flush with the glass.

The scans that I have made are quite nice. But the pain associated with them has meant I have not used the scanner as much as I intended and have spent far too much time making those few scans.

Rating:
Summary: Versatility and power in scanning negatives & pictures
Review: I bought this unit to scan old b/w negatives & pictures. I had to increase my RAM from 128M to 512M and upgrade my USB to 2.0. Once I did that, things worked better. However, I still couldn't save a bmp file directly without it crashing. After speaking with Canon tech support--which was far more helpful on the scanner side of the house than their copier side--I found that the ArcSoft software had some issues. I began to use the included Adobe Photoshop Elements program exclusively and, what a difference! The truly extraordinary ability of this program to take a faded, discolored photo and, via auto color correction, restore it to vibrant, rich colors is astonishing! Even b/w pictures can be easily enhanced with the auto contrast feature. Have been able to scan old box camera negatives (120, 620, 116 & 616 formats) using the carrier, to my great delight. One caveat, the large format carrier for negatives is not as robust as the 35mm negative carrier. My normal scans of positives is at 400 or 800 dpi. It's impressive that a photo the size of a quarter can be effectively enlarged with great integrity. I have pulled out subtle details in photos that had escaped my notice even with the aid of a conventional magnifying glass. If you scan your photos at a minimum of 400 dpi you'll be amazed at how much they can be enlarged with little to no visible pixelation. I haven't tried batch scanning. None of my local retailers carried this unit. As one explained to me, the general buying public tends to go for the cheapest, low resolution scanners. Am so glad I went for this more powerful, utilitarian unit. Its versatility to work with negatives from 35mm to large format 4x5, as well as 35mm slides, and photos or documents makes it a great choice. The Canon program Scangear is easy to use and even a novice can quickly master it in short order.

Rating:
Summary: Versatility and power in scanning negatives & pictures
Review: I bought this unit to scan old b/w negatives & pictures. I had to increase my RAM from 128M to 512M and upgrade my USB to 2.0. Once I did that, things worked better. However, I still couldn't save a bmp file directly without it crashing. After speaking with Canon tech support--which was far more helpful on the scanner side of the house than their copier side--I found that the ArcSoft software had some issues. I began to use the included Adobe Photoshop Elements program exclusively and, what a difference! The truly extraordinary ability of this program to take a faded, discolored photo and, via auto color correction, restore it to vibrant, rich colors is astonishing! Even b/w pictures can be easily enhanced with the auto contrast feature. Have been able to scan old box camera negatives (120, 620, 116 & 616 formats) using the carrier, to my great delight. One caveat, the large format carrier for negatives is not as robust as the 35mm negative carrier. My normal scans of positives is at 400 or 800 dpi. It's impressive that a photo the size of a quarter can be effectively enlarged with great integrity. I have pulled out subtle details in photos that had escaped my notice even with the aid of a conventional magnifying glass. If you scan your photos at a minimum of 400 dpi you'll be amazed at how much they can be enlarged with little to no visible pixelation. I haven't tried batch scanning. None of my local retailers carried this unit. As one explained to me, the general buying public tends to go for the cheapest, low resolution scanners. Am so glad I went for this more powerful, utilitarian unit. Its versatility to work with negatives from 35mm to large format 4x5, as well as 35mm slides, and photos or documents makes it a great choice. The Canon program Scangear is easy to use and even a novice can quickly master it in short order.

Rating:
Summary: GREAT scanner, but....
Review: I purchased this scanner for the purpose of scanning old B&W negatives (film size A116), color 35mm slides, and large format (Hasselblad) color negatives and slides...in addition to B&W and color photo scans and the occasional text scan.

I found the directions well written and the scanner and software easy to install on my computer. The test scan I took came out as beautiful as the original. Then, I randomly selected one of the B&W negatives for scanning...the picture that looked back at me took my breath away!!! It was taken 70+ years ago (and has been crammed into a metal matchbox for about the same number of years), and it was absolutely stunning...yes, this scanner was everything I had hoped it would be.

Then, I attempted to save this scan...and the problems began. It seemed that both of the softwares included were not happy with my computer set-up. I settled on using Photoshop Elements 2.0, because I was more familiar with it. I would load the software, do a preview (which brought up a large thumbnail), then do a final scan. After the final scan, I received an error message that said it could not perform that function. I then performed the scan a second time, and everthing was fine. I could then save the picture. However, if I tried to scan a second negative, the software locked up, forcing me to go into Task Manager applications and end the task. I discovered that if I closed Photoshop Elements after each saved scan, then restarted it, things worked okay. For me, this was NOT acceptable! My plan was to contact Canon tech support the following week...

Since this was a Friday, I decided I should take a second look at Canon's system requirements for the 9900F, since this had all of the earmarks of a memory (RAM) issue. I was running a Windows XP Pro (upgraded from Windows 98Me), a 1.4GHZ processor, 256MB of RAM...the minimum that Canon recommended for Windows XP (w/USB 2.0) is 566 MHz and 128 MB RAM! Hmmmmm... I figured that boosting the RAM would help, but the cost of the type of RAM I had was kind of high, so my son talked me into upgrading the entire system (new 2.4 GHz processor, new motherboard, and 1024 MB of RAM, and a fresh install of Windows XP). Well, now it works PERFECTLY...no problems.

I had heard prior to purchase there were software issues with the Canon 9900F, but I have been very happy with other Canon products I own, so I went for it! Maybe I was in need of an upgrade anyway...HOWEVER, I do believe that Canon's system requirements were way off with regard to the RAM required to use the scanner and effectively operate the software. I might have knocked half a star off for this, but I don't believe these shortcomings should reflect poorly on what is otherwise an OUTSTANDING scanner.

Rating:
Summary: Lemon Scanner with worse customer support
Review: Nothing has worked right and I have given Canon ample time to correct the problem. Dirt and smudges under the glass, horrible twain driver (EPSON's much better), bad color mangement and no real support from Canon. I usually love my Canon products, but stay away (far away) from this one. I think I just got a bad unit, but also think that I am just goin' to be stuck with it forever.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Scanner
Review: Perhaps the most versatile scanner yet. Has a true optical resolution of 3200dpi, which means it is very usable as a film (neg/trans) scanner. Canon includes neg/trans holders with the bundle, both for 35mm, medium formats, and 4x5. The software bundle includes Photoshop Elements, an OCR software, and some lesser programs. One great software program that comes built-in is the Canon FLARE 2 dust and scratch removal tool. Unlike ICE, FLARE 2 works on Kodachrome slides. It does not work on B&W. The one-button scanning ability is great if you do a lot of document scanning into Acrobat or an OCR program, but the single button film scanning really isn't useful, as you'll want to go into the Canoscan software and adjust the setting for most scans.

I have scanned both transperencies and negatives and the results have been very good. When compared to my Nikon Coolscan IV (a 2600dpi film scanner) the results hold up very well. Several newer Velvia trans looked very good at 3200dpi, even when compared to the scans from the Nikon. The scans are very slow from the 9900F, but the fact that I can scan multiple slide or negs at one time makes up for the lack of speed.

Scanning a 6x4.5 medium format neg the results were very sharp but a bit on the dark side. Note that I do not usually adjust for brightness during the scanning process and choose to wait until the image is dumped into Photoshop to do such work. Once adjusted, the scanned image looked excellent -- although the file was over 60mb in size.

About the only complaint I have is that Canon chose to make this scanner 8.5x11 instead of 8.5x14 -- having the ability to scan legal size, or oversize prints, would have been a plus.

I was very pleased with all of the scans I've done so far, including the 35mm and medium fomrat scans of negatives. The FLARE software really does work well, and is comparable to ICE. The 3200dpi scan gives some huge medium format file sizes, but that is what we want! An excellent scanner at a great price.

Rating:
Summary: Bad software
Review: This scanner has probably good hardware but you can expect big problems with software. The colors of photos scanned from negative film depend on the other shots on the same strip. Unfortunately even if you tell the scanner not to use color correction it does it anyway. Scanning 20+ negs with 3200dpi takes more than 5 hours. It was more or less acceptable for me if I could expect normal result. Unfortunately it happens often that after hours of waiting you have to delete pictures with heavy blue cast and put strips into the scanner in another order and hope that it will work (sometimes it helps).

I have asked from Canon customer care if there is another software or a way to configure this one somehow. They answered that I have to ask from Adobe. :-)