Which Is The Best Photo Scanner For Your Computer

Computer scanners are a handy tool. Many of them are multifunctional and operate as a fax, photo copier, and photo scanner. Just as their name suggests scanner scan. But which is the best photo scanner to buy?

It’s truly amazing how the price of scanners has dropped dramatically in the past couple of years. You can easily buy a full page flat bed scanner for around a $100 these days. And there are plenty of features showing up.

The added benefit to a photo scanner is its ability to scan negatives and slides. A powerful tool! Although we can’t tell you which is the best photo scanner for your needs we can give you and overview of 5 of the best photo scanners on the market. Armed with enough information you can decide for yourself.

Whether you plan to manipulate photo scans in Photoshop or just scan all your old negatives so you can compile and organize them you will need to purchase either a dedicated film scanner or one of the high end flatbed scanners that has the ability to scan your negatives and slides.

The most popular film type is 35mm which means you can generate a scan that will print a quality 8x10 print but your scanner has to have at least a 300 DPI and a 2700 PPI resolution. Negatives present special dynamics, so to ensure quality scans you need to be looking at scanners in the price range of $400 to $700. The cheaper ones just won’t do it for you.

If all you are ever going to do is scan negatives you might be better of just buying a film scanner but if you plan to scan photos, work with negatives, as well as other forms of art you are much better off with a flatbed scanner that has the film reader attached.

Be sure to read the information on the box very carefully to ensure you don’t get caught up in meaningless hype. An industry trick is to quote interpolated resolution rather than the optical resolution giving you images of pixels existing when in fact they do not. Optical density is also subject to some tricky presentations. The way it works is on a scale of 0 to 4 and the closer to 4 the better the detailing. The problem is that because there is no industry standard for defining where the scanner setting must be when the measurement is taken misleading readings are reported.

When looking at the features of various scanners be sure to always keep in mind what your tasks will be. If you want to digitize a bunch of old negatives you’ll want a scanner with scratch removal tools and color correction. Most photo scanners come with ICE image correction technology but some machines are now showing up with ICE4 which is the newer better bigger version.

The scan quality is dependant on both the control you have over scanning and the software that is bundled with it. For example there are some adjustments that are much more successful if they can be done at the time of the scan rather than later in packages like Photoshop or Adobe. At the same time if you’ve got a lot of negatives you are planning to scan you need a scanner that is capable of batch scanning.

The Microtek ScanMaker i900, the Nikon Coolscan V LS-50 ED, the Canon CanoScan 995F, and the Epson Perfection 3170 are all worth having a look at. Start with those and then you can grow your list larger. Be sure to check all photo scanners that are available to ensure you get the best value all the way around.

The best photo scanner for your computer is the one that does the job you need it to do for the money you have to spend. Are you ready to go shopping?