![]() The color restoration and dust removal worked reasonably well in my tests. The driver also includes software-based options to restore color to faded photos and remove dust and scratches. When you change settings, it shows the effect on the preview scan, so you can pick the best choice before scanning. The 8600F driver offers three levels of correction. The option lets you bring out detail in the face simply by turning the backlight correction on, instead of having to experiment with adjusting settings by hand. One of the features I've long appreciated in Canon scanners is backlight correction, which lets you easily fix photos which have, for example, a darkened face against a bright background. All of these options are easy to use, with the Twain driver offering a Simple mode, which handles most things automatically, and an Advanced mode that gives you much more control. The button choices include scanning directly to PDF format, your e-mail program, or your printer. You can also call up Canon's scan-control software to start a scan, or use one of the six scan buttons on the front of the scanner. The installation program also installs Twain and WIA drivers, so the scanner can work with almost any Microsoft Windows program with a scan command. The bundled software includes both Adobe Photoshop Elements 4.0 and ArcSoft PhotoStudio 5.5 for photo editing, NewSoft Presto! PageManager 7.15 for document management, and ScanSoft OmniPage SE 4.0 optical character recognition (OCR) software for converting scanned documents to editable text. Setting up the 8600F is absolutely standard: install the software and then plug in the power cord and USB cable. More important, the 8600F scan quality compares well with that of its current competition. The difference isn't dramatic, but if you look at images of the same photo scanned by both models side by side, the 8400F's scan shows slightly softer focus and a little less detail. The 8600F's claimed optical resolution of 4,800 pixels per inch is significantly higher than the 8400F's 3,200 ppi, and the actual ability to resolve detail-which is usually limited by a scanner's optics rather than its ppi rating-is improved as well. ![]() The good news is that the 8600F does do better. On top of that, the 8600F costs 20 percent more than the 8400F, which means it has to do better to match it on bang for the buck. Quality that blew away the competition in the 8400F's day is no longer as impressive. Today, however, plenty of inexpensive scanners can handle film well. ![]() That was enough to make it an Editors' Choice. The model it replaces, the CanoScan 8400F, was one of the first inexpensive flatbed scanners to scan film-both slides and strips of film-reasonably well. The Canon CanoScan 8600F ($180 street) has a lot to live up to. Best Hosted Endpoint Protection and Security Software.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |