Product Reviews

It can be easy to ignore scanners these days. Not only has digital photography well and truly taken over from film photography at all levels of the professional spectrum, but it's done so for such a long time that most serious photographers will already have digitised their archive of prints and negatives. Canon's taking no notice, though, and alongside its high-end cameras such as the Eos 40D, the CanoScan 8800F takes pride of place as Canon's top consumer-level scanner.

It offers a range of features befitting such a title. It doesn't just handle reflective sources - a pair of plastic adaptors in the box offer a decent range of transparency scanning options. One handles 35mm negative strips - up to two at a time. There's another for mounted 35mm slides, and yet another for - unusually - medium format film, making the 8800F a dream for photographers who enjoy living in a niche.

It's reasonably fast when it comes to scanning. At 2400ppi, the 8800F scanned eight 35mm frames (on two negatives strips) in a shade under 20 minutes. In fairness, the quality of the end result was excellent. And, the high-optical resolution produces images equal in resolution to those made by an eight-megapixel camera - enough for long-term archiving and reproduction.

It's at lower resolutions that the 8800F really excels, though. Our tests with reflective sources revealed one of the fastest scanners we'd ever used. The speed with which a preview is produced is next to breathtaking, and appears to be limited only by the top mechanical speed of the scanner itself: we had an image in just seven seconds. Scanning a 6 x 4in print at 300ppi took just nine seconds. And, a 10 x 8in print, at an impressive 600ppi, was equally nippy, with our final image appearing in Photoshop in 20 seconds. Those up for a quick spot of

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OCR will be pleased with greyscale performance: an A4 document containing nothing but plain text appeared in under eight seconds.

Canon's Twain driver is excellent. Everything is kept simple, but all the image optimisation options you'd expect are in there. Levels and curves can be adjusted pre-scan, and we also appreciate the inclusion of dust and hair removal algorithms. In practice, these had very little effect on the amount of time our scans took, but we're not without reservations as to their effectiveness - in most cases, serious photographers will prefer the sure-footed approach of using Photoshop's Clone tool.

And Canon doesn't stop with a simple Twain interface. ArcSoft PhotoStudio is included, but in practice this is a mere distraction compared to the main event - Photoshop Elements. Elements is a very powerful piece of software, which represents an excellent point of entry to Photoshop for all but the most advanced of users.

It's the more advanced users who will reach the limitations of the 8800F the fastest. Image quality is admittedly fine. Colours are accurate and grain is kept to a minimum. But compared to the output of other scanners the 8800F falls down slightly. Colours are slightly overexposed, and each of our scans benefitted from a post-scan levels and curves adjustment. If you simply want a fast scan of acceptable quality there's no need for extensive use of Photoshop. But if you're after deep, rich blacks and vibrant colours, the time taken per scan goes up as you spend time with each image.

Image quality is certainly poorer than the A-listed Epson Perfection 4490 Photo. The Epson might be nearing its second birthday, but there's no arguing with its quality. And, at the cheaper end of the market, it's difficult to argue with the Epson Perfection V200. You sacrifice some features - notably the 8800F's flexible transparency scanning - but the scan engine of the Epson produces better quality scans, which is, at the end of the day, what it's all about.

The 8800F comes close - if transparency scanning is the name of the game, you'll be able to put up with tinkering with each image as it comes off the scanner, and its blend of speed and features is up there with the best, particularly for the price. But if you're after superlative image quality, have a look at either of the Epsons: it turns out the scanner market is competitive after all.