OUT OF THE BOX: The complete machine is much smaller and lighter than my previous scanner, with the same scan field dimensions. It comes with a USB connection and a separate power "brick" between wall socket and scanner. Three scan guides are included; a combo of 2 side-by-side 35 mm film strips (for 5 frames each) with latches that flatten curved strips, a guide for 4 standard size slides and a 120mm film strip holder. These guides fit into a specific place on the scan surface, so that they line up under the lid-mounted light source, which is covered by a removable shield. The lid is quite light, but it needs opening to almost straight up for it stay open without support. The thin latches on the 35mm film strip guide are very flimsy, and I already snapped one when trying to load curved negative strips. Software with scanner drivers etc., an advanced image editing program, as well as versions of Adobe Photoshop Elements (5.0 for windows, 4.0 for mac) are included.
SOFTWARE: I haven't tried all the included software yet, as I prefer to work in other programs for archiving and retouching images. Having said that, using one of the programs to drive the scanner (MP Navigator) I think that there are some unnecessary steps and windows between scanning and saving. Working from a mac, setup was easy and scanning using the scanner interface is very intuitive. Everything runs relatively smooth, but there are occasional software crashes, and I cannot queue a lot of images before the program's buffer is full (even with an excess of RAM). Automatic detection of the images within slide frames or negative strips is very accurate, but this can be switched off, as another reviewer noted, and you can select your own area of interest or a whole film-strip.
SETTINGS: There are numerous choices to make before you scan, such as Unsharp Mask and Remove Dirt & Scratches, which has different levels to choose from, as do "Grain Correction" and "Backlight Correction". While I generally see a beneficial effect of the Unsharp Mask (again; I work at high dpi settings), I notice that turning the dirt and scratch removal on only makes a mess of the affected areas, while leaving some specs or smudges completely untouched. I tend to turn the choices for removal of dirt & scratches and grain correction completely off. I am running the scanner completely from the scanner software and am not using the panel of buttons on the scanner lid, but it appears that these can be user-configured. Hidden in the preferences is also a setting to enable 48/16 bit output, but I haven't played with that yet.
RESOLUTION: As noted by other reviewers, at higher resolution settings scanning can take quite some time, but I actually like this when it gets to a point of 30 minutes (for example for 8 negatives at 3200 dpi), so that I can work on something else instead of tending to the scanner every few minutes. For a preview scan and scanning prints at lower dpi settings this scanner is reasonably fast.
FILE FORMAT & COMPRESSION: When I was running my initial tests to figure out optimal settings (optimal between image resolution needed and memory demand desired) I ran into some unexpected findings. For instance, I see a dramatic improvement in retention of details when I save scanned images as JPEG format rather than in full size TIFF. The compression actually seems to greatly improve contrast and sharpness, while taking up a lot less space! There are 3 levels of JPEG quality; High, Standard and Low (with inverse amounts of compression), but so far I have not noticed any (!) difference in final details when I choose "standard" over "high" quality, and again; the files take up less space in standard setting. A clear difference may be seen at lower dpi settings.
RESULTS: The proof of any scanner is in the final scanned image and judging by that standard this CanoScan performs really well. Scanned prints are easy, because their physical dimensions don't require a high dpi setting. For color or negative film, some colors come out perfect, while others need a little tweaking afterwards, but overall this scanner performs great. I have posted a few images of color slides scanned with the CanoScan 8800F where I compare certain scan or save settings.
IN SHORT:
Pros: High quality scanner with lots of professional options for a low price. Abundant choices in resolution and other settings. Produces amazingly detailed images from prints, negatives and slides.
Cons: Mostly related to software (only tested on a mac); small buffer for scanned images, occasional software crashes, some needles clutter in amount of windows and pop-ups (some, but not all can be turned off). Flimsy latches for 35mm filmstrip guide.
In spite of some software shortcomings the end results are fantastic for a scanner at this price, and I rate this scanner around four-and-a-half stars.
This is a review of the Canon CanoScan 8800F.