Customer Reviews

Canon CanoScan LiDE 600F scanner (0302B002)

5 star:		(37)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I've only used work-related scanners for a long time, and these were big high-end models that had their own power source. I didn't expect this Canon to be as fast or have as a good color fidelity from the outset, but certain design aspects impressed me quite a bit <-- disclaimer for why I went so crazy with so many customer-submitted pictures. Hmmm, After submitting the pics, I realized that the flash demo on the amazon page is pretty darn good.

Anyways:

1)The USB powered scanner is quite useful in that it's only powered when plugged into the computer. There is no power button, but all you have to do is unplug it from the computer, and it's off. Bootup/warm up time is quite fast. Just plug into your computer, start the included software or Photoshop, and import/acquire.

2)It does scan a little slower than the power scanners I'm used to, but it does the job.

3)I remember awhile back an HP version of a tilted scanner (Scanjet 4600 series), and I wasn't too impressed by its scanning quality nor its functionality. The "upright" function, I thought, was a gimmick, and not very useful. But now I find that for things I want to scan quickly, a page at a time, I can just slide it in and scan.

4)The included film adapter is very substantial. It has its own light source, in comparison to other scanners which give you a slot/hole to shine light out of. A substantial/separately mounted film adapter piece ensures that the background of the scanner is a nice even white as well. On some of these other scanners, you see ridges from the plastic moldings that double up for the negatives.

5)I am just soooo impressed by the design for the stand and the multi-angle lids. The option of changing the angle of the lid WHEN you want to is a godsend.

6)the lids and the negative film adapter are held in place with magnets. This is great, as lids and adapter will come off and attach easily, without the wear-and-tear imposed upon plastic latches.

7)I have been forever turned off by Epsons, as they are notorious for not updating their drivers for new OSs. I remember trying to update an Epson from Win2K to WinXP, and I just could not do it. Bye bye Epson.

8)I've tried the negative scanning once, and although a little on the slow side, (1200 dpi), the resulting image was quite good.

I think this is a great scanner for home usage, and even for perhaps small businesses. Of course, it doesn't have a feed tray, nor is it the fastest scanner out there, but its design and portability (there's a large lock button on the bottom to secure moving parts during transport) as well as its functionality deserves it 5 stars in my book.

Some addenda to the previous reviews. The software isn't great but I've found I can make this scanner work with OmniPage and Adobe Photoshop Elements. Since my main needs are scanning text for optical-character recognition (OCR), and some photo scans, this makes the 600F fully functional, thank you.

The scanner isn't as fast as some desktop scanners I've used, but it makes up for it in portability and lightness, i.e., as a mobile scanner for use with a laptop. I would've liked having this on a recent trip where I needed to scan a number of legal and administrative documents and found myself making a number of trips to Kinko's. Given a small printer, this scanner and my laptop I could've saved a lot of time and expense with the 600F's copy feature.

The 600F is also quiet enough that I would be comfortable using it in a library (i.e., doing research), and it seems to make reasonable demands on the laptop power. Given that the USB cable is also its power source -- and no bulky AC power cords to go with what the laptop already has -- this adds to the scanner's simplicity and portability.

Highly recommend.

Shock and horror was my conclusion after reading the countless reviews from previous flatbed scanner purchasers who bought from Canon, Epson, HP and others. How could my limited computer skills possibly solve the described problems, I wondered? Being extra cautious, I resolved to buy from Amazon, who promised a 30-day refund policy.

Based on total satisfaction with my Canon Powershot S50 camera and my Canon i960 photo printer, I chose the LiDE 600F scanner, which seemed to have fewer negative reviews. And a wise choice it proved to be.

Connection of the single USB cable and software installation were a breeze, yielding excellent printed scans in less than a half hour. The installation wizard handled the chores perfectly on my Dell E520 with Windows XP Media Edition. My sympathies go out to anyone with installation problems who didn't buy an LiDE 600F.

Then there is the extremely clever ultra-thin case design. The cover handles single sheets or a stack of pages and objects up to about one inch thick, or it folds back to accommodate books and magazines. Alternatively, the stand-up bracket permits operation of the scanner in a nearly vertical position to conserve desktop space.

The equally clever software is well suited to simple push button scanning and copying for dummies, as well as advanced modes for a variety of selectable image enhancements. For me, its biggest plus is the ability to launch a scan with Photoshop (File>Import) and have the scan returned directly to a Photoshop canvas for editing or filing (an unadvertised but most pleasant bonus).

The machine's only apparent shortcoming is its inability to handle mounted 35 mm transparencies.

Coupling all this with the excellent scan quality and speed for printed pages and 35 mm negatives, the LiDE 600F has proven to be a dream machine, far exceeding my pre-purchase expectations and hopes for a successful scanner experience. It's hard to imagine anyone being disappointed with the LiDE 600F, provided you don't need to scan 35 mm slides or large volumes of negatives. Thanks, Canon, you got it right this time.

I don't know why others have had problems with the software running on a Mac. I have an Intel Mac, I installed the scanner software and it worked perfectly out of the box. Imported from Photoshop CS3 Import menu and tried it with included software as well and had no problems. GREAT scans too, by the way.

As far as the knocks on the scanner software's value as an image editor, I don't know if people are expecting to get a high end image editor or something with a $150 scanner but its been my experience that scanner software usually isnt all that great...same goes for printer software. They are usually adequate and nothing more. There's a reason why Photoshop costs $600.

This scanner is great...USB powered (no fat AC plug), 180 degree flip-off cover, and superb image quality. You can't go wrong!

Great scanner! Sleek, fast, and well worth its money. Using the Canon Scanner Toolbox software [included] is key: you can scan it directly to to any program you designate [I use Photoshop], which I then use to tweak my scans. Within the toolbox, you can also scan it directly to printer, save, pdf, etc. There are also convenient buttons on the scanner itself - these are a bit sensitive and I accidentally pressed them a couple of times, but you can quickly cancel if that happens. I ignore the included software [Arcsoft] in favor of Photoshop because I prefer to edit my images myself in familiar territory. I scanned, edited, and saved 20 images at 300 dpi in less than an hour. The USB power connection is a great bonus! No warmup time whatsoever. It stays plugged into my front USB port - I can just plop a photo onto the scanner, open up the Toolbox, verify settings, and presto!

I'm looking forward to using the negative scanner attachment on my old family photos. should be fun.

So far, I'm pretty pleased with this CanoScan LiDE 600F scanner. After my old Epson 1200U scanner died, I started researching scanners again. I was somewhat depressed when I noticed that most of scanners sold these days are huge. Luckily, this scanner counters that trend. It's got a nice, small footprint and, best of all, doesn't need a separate power connection. Plus, Canon's web site has Vista drivers (as of this writing, version 12.1.2, released June 2007). Since I'm using my own applications instead of what comes with the scanner, all I had to do was download those drivers, install them, then plug the scanner into a USB port. Everything works fine (not the buttons, I haven't set those up yet). Some observations:

- I don't know why, maybe the scanner does some kind of automatic processing on the scans, but the scans I'm getting seem crisper and clearer (at the same resolution/color settings) than did those from my Epson.
- The driver is very good at finding the area I want scanned and automatically cropping it. I haven't had to adjust the crop area yet. With the Epson, I always had to adjust it.
- The speed is pretty much a draw. The physical scan (movement of the scanning bar up and down the platen) takes slighly more time than the Epson, but the transfer of control and data back to my calling program is faster.
- The sound isn't loud, but it has a rougher tone to it than the Epson.
- The only real negative I can find directly attributed to the scanner is the magnetic "latch" on the cover. In theory, it seems like a good way to keep the cover closed (especially when the scanner is in its space-saving, upright mode). But, in practice, the magnets just make it hard to open the lid. If there were more of a lip available for grabbing the lid, it might not be as bothersome. But, as is, I wish I could remove those magnets.

I do have one other problem with the scanner. But, I'm not sure if it's caused by my scanning software (Acrobat 7.0.9) or by the driver. Every time I tell Acrobat to go to the scanner and get a document, the scanner defaults back to Black & White mode. No matter what I do, I can't get it to stick across sessions in Grayscale mode. I'm going to have to try installing Canon's Vista Toolbox software and set up the buttons. Maybe I'll be able to do Grayscale scans from one of them. But, I'd much prefer working from within my application and calling the scanner instead of working within the scanner and calling the application.

Ignoring the difficulty I'm having with default settings (since that could be my fault), I rate this scanner at a Very Good four stars out of five. If I could get rid of those lid magnets, it would probably be very close to a five star scanner.

I've had the CanoScan LiDE 600F for about a month now, and I've been very impressed. It replaced my old Canon scanner that didn't survive a move - so I was looking for similar functionality. I LOVE the fact that it draws power from it's USB cord - I wouldn't have considered it if it didn't. The footprint isn't bad, either, especially if you keep it on it's stand (that is, scanning vertically). Also, the fact that it's a USB 2 connection makes it much faster than previous scanners that I've had (only USB 1), so it zooms through a scan even at higher resolutions (I only top out at 600 dpi). But the best feature of all is the cover that opens a full 180 degrees! I scan a lot of illustration boards that are 14"x17", so that makes things much, much easier.

I'm a Mac user - and I agree with previous reviews that the included software is a bit disorienting for those used to more "Mac-like" apps. But, it does the job. I mean, how much time do you really spend in the scanning software? It was essential for me that I could scan directly from within Photoshop, and the plugin that comes is straightforward and flexible. Very nice. I don't use much in the way of "image enhancement" (I'm a PS junkie), so I can't tell you if any functionality is missing there. Also, the OCR software that is included is pretty decent. A little unintuitive, but performs well.

In summary: if you're looking for a fast, flexible scanner that has a small footprint, USB power, and you're using it just to capture images that you will edit yourself later anyway, this scanner is damn near perfect.

I bought this scanner specifically for scanning tightly-bound large books made fragile by more than a century of sitting on their shelves. The LiDE600F is the sole available low-priced scanner designed for such a job.

It has performed superbly, yielding perfect copies of the yellowed pages with no damage to the originals.

I would have been content with plain copies, but was pleasantly surprised to find the scanned images could be converted to editable text files or to searchable Portable Document Files (PDF} by just pressing the right button. This versatility is mainly owing to what I believe to be a full version of "Presto! Page Manager 7.15" software, which comes bundled with the scanner. Also in the software bundle is "Adobe Photoshop Starter, Ed. 3.0," which is quite useful for picture editing and a version of Omnipage, for optical character recognition (OCR), which is somewhat limited in function when compared to "Presto!".

I love this scanner. I use a mac and have had no problems. I believe the poor reviews are due to the fact that the scanner will not scan mounted slides. If it were not for the ability to scan 35mm film strips( something I like since I'm not scanning mounted slides), I think the LiDE600F with its versatile design would have reviews similar to the LiDE70. If your shopping for an inexpensive scanner to scan slides and negatives then I would recommend the CanoScan CS8600F. I have been scanning images for about 10 years and highly recommend this scanner to anyone looking for a hip, versatile, innovative, sleek, high performance scanner all for a reasonable price.

I purchase primarily to scan multipage documents to pdf. The multitude of pdf buttons built-in seemed to make this the scanner of choice. Unfortunately, I found the default threshold for B&W documents to be set too low. It's not possible to adjust this in the Canoscan Toolbox program preferences. There is a work around that requires directly accessing scan driver, but this negates the advantage of having the pdf buttons on the scanner. You can also scan documents as grayscale, but this takes up more memory than necessary for most plain B&W documents and white background is slightly gray.

The hardware is nice, although I don't like the small magnets at the corners of the cover. This is anannoyance when scanning many pages.

In summary, doesn't work great if your primary interest is document scanning to pdf.