Customer Reviews

Canon CanoScan 9950F Flatbed Scanner

5 star:		(55)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I bought this mostly to scan a large collection of color slides for use in Powerpoint presentations; it replaced a HP ScanJet 3500 (about which I had no complaints at all, but needed the slide scanning capabilities). I'm running it off an iMac G5 with Mac OS 10.4, scanning through Photoshop CS2, using the USB 2.0 connection (Firewire 400 also possible).

You get a lot in a compact package: scanner, with lid with built-in transparency light, power and USB cables (no Firewire cable, though), 4 transparency templates (35mm strip, 35mm slide, 120 format film guide and 4x5 transparency guide, all of sturdy plastic rather than the cardboard I've seen with other scanners), minimal printed documentation, software CD and Photoshop Elements CD. And it shipped very quickly direct from Amazon.com.

The CanoScan 9950F works like a dream--it was out of the box, software installed, scanning immediately. Scanning slides took a little longer for me to figure out, partly because the very brief documentation follows procedures for 35mm film strips rather than slides as its main example. But the results are great--very high resolution (1200 dpi, can go up to 4800), clear, crisp, bright scans (the only downside is that it shows how dusty some of my slides are, but the software even has some fixes for that). And the scans are pretty quick--average of about 30 seconds per slide at 1200 dpi. Scanning paper documents is a snap, and you can do all the usual things like scan to a printer like a copy machine or to a PDF file. The USB 2.0 connection gives fast transfer rates and, unlike some of my other USB devices, putting the computer to sleep is no problem for this scanner--OS 10.4 will recognize it right after awakening. Plus, it looks very cool; scanner design was the least of my concerns here, but it's hard not to admire the sleek black and dark gray case, and it seems pretty sturdy as well.

A few notes for the new buyer.... The Getting Started booklet is extremely minimal and skips some important things (the power button on the front of the scanner, for example!). It's mildly annoying that the instructions take you through procedures using the proprietary software ArcSoft PhotoStudio bundled with the scanner software, rather than Photoshop, which anyone who's serious about images will be using. (The scanner does ship with Photoshop Elements on a separate CD-Rom). It's even more annoying the way the software is installed as a group (it doesn't seem to be possible to skip installation of one piece and then go back and install it). None of the print documentation seems to explain the functions of the blue LED on the front of the scanner (OK, continuous means "on", slow flashing "standby" but what about the different speeds of flashing while scanning is going on?), nor are you told when it's okay to turn the machine off altogether (apparently any time when it's not actually scanning). Finally, there is some wiggle-room in the slide templates--I know this will be helpful to accommodate various kinds of slides, but it means that you'll want to make sure the slides are straight in the template before scanning: just slapping them on may result in having to rotate the images a bit later (I've used higher-end scanners with spring-loaded slide templates that do away with this problem).

There are certainly much higher-end scanners out there for slides (and other film media), but when you think of the price of the CanoScan 9950F, it's a great bargain. I'm really happy with this so far; once I've scanned all my slides I've got plenty of other jobs to keep it busy!

I've had the machine for about a month, and scanned in several hundred 120 negatives and about 1000 slides so far (5 or 6 thousand to go). It takes about 45 minutes to scan in a set of 12 slides, but they come out great. The 'faded' setting on the machine worked good for some slides from the 70s. Dust and scratch setting also makes a big difference. I don't use the 'Autotone' setting - I do that in Photoshop CS and I think it does a better job. Scanning the slides in 16 bit color, 4800 dpi, doing a batch color, size, bit depth and saving in Photoshop. Not using the included photosoftware - Photoshop CS out of the box (and other programs like Thumbs Plus) work fine. Scanning photos at 600 dpi goes much faster than slides or negatives - good thing since I have 22 albums. I've worked with several scanners for over 10 years and this one is well worth the money. Easy to use and looks good on the desktop.

Really like this scanner. It's a bit on the pricey side for a scanner alone. However, add that it is an excellent film scanner and it's actually a good deal. Negatives are really easy with the software - load a full carrier with 20 to 36 negatives, preview in under a minute, and each shot is placed in it's own thumbnail. Click on which pictures you want scanned, and only those are scanned. Couldn't be easier.

There is a tough moment with this scanner and software - you absolutely have to calibrate the scanner before doing negatives. I had read a review that somebody returned this model twice because it left vertical streaks on the scans. I had the exact same problem - in addition to awful color and totally black frames - I reviewed the troubleshooting guide and it said to make sure the calibration window was free of dust, and force a calibration. Voila, streaks gone, images just about perfect.

It's a very fast scanner. Does absolutely beautiful, nearly perfect photocopies. Paper scans are outstanding. Previews come up very fast. And excellent film scanning. A great package.

It's a pretty big scanner, but it also has a ton of electonics inside. It has the feel of a very well built unit, with a good bit of heft. And it's a very good looking black, shiny.

One of the best features, the lid is spring loaded so that it stops where ever you leave it. Great feature to partially lift the lid, it stays there.

Highly recommend this scanner.

If you are archiving the family slides or even slides for business, Canon's CanoScan 9950F is without a doubt the scanner for you. At a price that's far below the "slide only" scanners, it gives comparable results plus the benefits of a flat bed scanner. Unlike other flatbeds, however, the Canon can scan up to 12 35mm slides at a time with solid results.
I am running this scanner on Windows XP with 1GB of RAM. Also USB2.0 or FireWire is a must.
Scan resolution can go as high as 4800, but I found that unless you have a really tricked out computer the scan time and the size of the files make this setting a bit unwieldy. (Read it takes a looooooong time.) A resolution of 1200 gives more than satisfactory results and it takes about 10-15 minutes to scan 12 slides on a my system.
My previous scanning experience was with the HP Scanjet 4070. The difference between the two is night and day. More than worth the extra bucks. The HP produced splotchy, dust riddled, soft scans. The same slides, using the proper ScanGear settings, came out sharp and dust free on the Canon. Not to mention the fact that the HP only scans 4 slides at a time.
I actually went back and rescanned some 400 slides that I had already scanned on the HP.
Bottom Line: You can spend 550 to over a thousand and more on a quality slide only scanner. Or you can spend 150 or less on a cheap slide flatbed. But for the amateur (which is what I am) the best bang for the buck by far is the CanoScan 9950F.

I recently purchased the 9950F for the specific purpose of scanning 35 mm slides. In the course of three weeks I scanned over 1700 slides with very good results. I found the colors to be excellent and true to the original slide. I scanned at 2400 dpi because I wanted enough resolution to use the pictures for slide shows. I also scanned several of the slides at 1200 dpi for a comparison and when projected on a 28 inch TV screen could see no difference in the 1200 and 2400 scans.

The 1200 dpi scans took about 1 1/2 minutes on my computer and the 2400 dpi scans took slightly under 4 minutes/ slide. A few tips for good results: 1) always calibrate the scanner between each set of slides (the template holds 12 slides).
2) For slides with normal lighting I set the backlight correction to medium. For light slides I set this correction to low or off, For dark slides I set it to high. Since only one set of scan data are allowed for all of the slides in the template it is a good idea to group light slides together and dark slides together.
3) I used the dust/ scratch correction on medium and it did a good job. 4) Pull the slides tight against the bottom of the template slots. There is a little play here and if you don't do this your slides can get tipped at a small angle from the horizontal.

The Canon scanning software failed me a few times when I did a large number of scans without reinitializing. When this happened, I usually lost at least one-half of the scans. To guard against this, I made it standard practice to load the software fresh for each scan. It takes almost no time to do this and it can save you some headaches.

I found the Canon software a little clumsy to use, but managed to make it do what I wanted. For the money you can't beat this scanner for 35 mm slides. Considering that commercial places charge around 50 cents / slide to do this for you, I easily paid for the scanner 2 1/2 times. What a deal!
-G. L. Kaes

I bought this scanner principally to scan colour negatives. I took a 4"x5" negative taken by my photography teacher and scanned it at 4800dpi 48bit. I put the resultant TIFF on a CD, along with the TIFF of the same negative scanned with a $20'000 professional scanner (they charge $70 a scan). My teacher (who didn't know which was which) thought that the Canon scan was crisper and the colours more accurate.

In another experiment I scanned a 35mm negative and enlarged the result to 70cm X 140cm, the results were very good.

Note that you can't scan at 48bit with the supplied ScanGear software simply because JPEG doesn't support 16bit colour - import from the scanner using Photoshop or a similar program and everything works fine.

This is an absolutely amazing piece of equipment that I can recommend unreservedly.

I purchased the Canon flatbed scanner because of its excellent templates for copying negatives of which I have thousands. I also based my purchase on the fact that Canon has a excellen track record for cameras. The unit does an outstanding job copying 35mm color slides as well as 4 x 5 negatives. I am very pleased with the unit.

If you buy this scanner be sure to get it from somewhere like Amazon.com that will help you return it in case you find quality issues.

The first scanner I received had a spec stuck to the back of the glass that appeared in all of my scans. Canon indicated that the unit needed to be serviced and they'd be happy to send me a refurbished one - no way. I returned it to Amazon and just received another, which has 2 specs, although in less conspicuous places. However after about a dozen scans I noticed more dust specs on the underside of the glass and the scan head has a lot of dust on it. It's a challenge enough keeping the dust off of the TOP of the glass, impossible to deal with the bottom. Maybe as the scanner has expanded production, manufacturing facility quality has degraded. So I'll be returning this one as well.

The scanner does an excellent job scanning negatives, though it takes about 10 minutes for each 35mm frame at the highest resolution. If you do not plan to scan negatives and slides then consider other flatbed scanners that can scan photos just as well for less money.

I have some gripes with the software ("FARE")- the image processing settings (ie backlight correction) are applied to all images being scanned vs. individual frames so the processing often ends up worsening the image characteristics - that's quite a flaw - hopefully it'll rectified by a future software update. I found it better to simply turn off all image processing when scanning multiple negatives and instead use Photoshop Elements or similar software on each - something you'll need to do anyway if you want to restore old images.

I've used this scanner for well over 100 contact-pages of negatives (transparancies) as well as for CD cover art on a Mac G5 running MacOS X and Photoshop. It is not a dedicated film scanner, but it's plenty for my uses. I find the scanner and importing software quite easy to use. The purpose of the importing software is only that; you fix each individual frame in Photoshop or whatever graphic program you prefer after you get the basic data into the computer. I strongly recommend this scanner for users who need a general-purpose scanner with high resolution, the ability to handle transparancies, and who want the speed of USB2 or Firewire 400.

(Update) I've since decided that film scans are not as much in focus as I'd like. I'm speaking specifically of 35mm negatives and mounted slides. Close, but no cigar. I've purchased a Nikon Coolscan V for film scanning.

It took some getting used to, but we have had singular success with this scanner. (I say "we," but my husband, who is an artist, has done all the work.) Slides dating back to the 1960's are in remarkably good shape and convert well to digital photos. Adobe Photoshop cleans up scratches and the occasional blob. It also can remove unwanted details in the photo, making each a true work of art.

Amazon had the best price on the web and free shipping when we bought the Canoscan 950F. Shipping was on time.

We couldn't be more pleased.