Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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74 of 75 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great for most uses, could be better for scanning books, September 20, 2007
With a few caveats, this is a great little scanner. The best part is that it actually fits in my Targus computer case WITH my laptop. It weighs only 2-3 pds, and runs off USB power---no converter brick to haul around. Scans are sharp and fast.
Unfortunately, the particular design of scanner is that (unlike most fat desktop scanners) it cannot scan 3D objects, therefore text near the spine of a book, which is not in actual and absolute contact with the glass, is very blurry. Nor can you just press down the book---this seems to warp the glass causing blurriness elsewhere on the page, and may even jam the scanning mechanism. Also, the lid is non-removable, which means that you may be out-of-luck if you need to scan part of a large object.
Despite these limitations, the price and exceptional portability may make this series of scanners the choice for scanning books---because books which need to be scanned are usually non-circulating items in libraries or archives.
Compared to other scanners the "frame" framing the glass surface is low and only ca 3/8" wide on the right side. So, if you have a circa 1/2" inside margin, and place the right side of the scanner at the edge of a table, you can scan many books easily. You can get in tighter by using a peice of stiff, 1/16" thick, cardboard, ca 8 3/8" X 11", placed behind each page before scanning---it is a pain, but it works.
Your original must be ABSOLUTELY flat. Since the lid is light, a weight placed on top of the lid can help insure that the original is in full contact with the glass. A ca 1" thick book is about the right weight.
The foam "pressure pad" in the lid is a bit too soft to insure that some originals are pressed sufficiently flat. When scanning magazines etc., a 8 1/2" X 11" piece of stiff cardboard between the magazine and the pressure pad can help---and of course, the weight of a book on top of the lid.
Although some reviews imply that books thicker than 1" cannot be scanned, because the "EZ-lid" only adjust to accomodate items up to 1" thick---in fact, and despite the instructions, it is not essential to close the lid at all---so there is no practical limit on book thickness.
Other reviewers have complained about not being able to scan at greater than 1200 dpi. If you want to scan at, say 2400 dpi, you have to type the value in manually in the driver software. However, such scans are slow, and I have found no improvement.
(35mm type) microfilm can be scanned, ca 6 frames at a time, and produce readiable documents. Scan the image, image (dull) side against the glass, at 1200 dpi, save as tif files, and (if necessary) mirror-image the image with your graphics editor
It is true that the scanner draws power only when scanning. That is NOT a great advantage when used with a portable computer as one reviewer implies. At least with my ThinkPad---scanning to a portable running on battery-power very seriously slows down scanning. Plan on having your portable plugged into an AC outlet if you plan to scan more than a few pages.
The scanner is not intrusively noisy in an office---but may be in some tomb-like libraries with noise-reflective surfaces.
If you want the best possible scans, you should save to tif---but the only tif files the scanner driver produces are huge uncompressed tif files. Solution: scan from a graphics program which allows you to save files as loss-less tif (LZW compression) which will produce files at 1/4 to as small as 1/20 the size with no loss in detail. JPG files are always degraded by compression. PDF images generally default to ca 300dpi highly-compressed jpg, or jpg-like compression---acceptable for most photos, but not for text. Solution: scan as tif files and use Adobe Acrobat (or other pdf editor) to convert the tif files to pdf. Acrobat (and most other pdf editors) allow you to select the graphics quality---select "highest quality"--or a specific dpi--or disable "downsampling".
If you scan half-tone (screened) photos from books, magazines, etc. You can use Gausian blur (in your graphics editing program) to improve (descreen) them for viewing and printing. Use the lowest possible value which eliminates the dot pattern. At 1200 dpi, I usually use "4 pixels". If you have a "remove moire" function, that may work even better, particularly with high quality halftones scanned at 600 dpi or lower. Again, use the lowest value which does the job.
The very best scans are produced by setting the tone curve manually. Using "custom settings" to define tone curves for your particular project makes the process a little easier.
Don't panic about the scary "unlock the scanner before using" notice in the instructions. If you try to scan with the scanner locked, it will tell you, "unlock me". If so, just unlock it.
Suggestion to the Canon designers: If the frame was flush with the surface of the glass, and the frame was a little narrower, at least on one side, this would be a great book scanner. A driver which can (automatically or manually) record different components on a page as most appropriate for each (automatically or as specified by the user) would be very welcome. Such components include: continuous tone and half-tone black and white and color images, single-tone black & white and single tone color images, and text (for pdf etc). Control over pdf quality, the amount of descreening, etc. would be appreciated.
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24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The perfect laptop scanning companion, September 16, 2007
The CanoScan LiDE 90 is small, light, and portable. It's no wider or longer than my Dell Insperon 6000, so it fits nicely in my laptop case. It can easily be hidden in a desk drawer. All power is through the USP, so there is no need for an electrical socket. The scanner is on only when it is scanning, so it does not run down the laptop's battery. The color photo scanning is quite accurate. The supplied OCR worked surprisingly well. Images can also be saved as PDF files. This affordable scanner covers the scanning basics well, and will prove to be a real time saver for me.
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22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good value, November 26, 2007
Got this to replace my 4-year-old Visioneer scanner. My visioneer scanner works with my paperport verion 9.0, but it won't work with the latest Paperport version 11.0. So, I have to find a new one. This LiDE90 is a good balance choice between price and performance. Got it from Amazon for $69.99.
Pro:
1. Powered by USB directly. So, I now don't need to power it up/down between scanning jobs any more.
2. Very thin. And is smaller than my visioneer scanner.
3. Work with the latest Paperport software (ver 11).
4. The scanner driver provides quite some options. Good for fine tuning.
5. Scanning speed is good (depends on resolution).
Con:
1. The lid can be raised about 1 inch for book scanning. But, can not scan think books.
Some people may complain about the squeezing noise from it. But it's not too loud. And it seems all low-price scanners have similar type of noise when scanning.
Overall, I am happy with this purchase.
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