Canon CanoScan 9950F Flatbed Scanner

I bought this mostly to scan a large collection of color slides for use in Powerpoint presentations; it replaced a HP ScanJet 3500 (about which I had no complaints at all, but needed the slide scanning capabilities). I'm running it off an iMac G5 with Mac OS 10.4, scanning through Photoshop CS2, using the USB 2.0 connection (Firewire 400 also possible). You get a lot in a compact package: scanner, with lid with built-in transparency light, power and USB cables (no Firewire cable, though), 4 transparency templates (35mm strip, 35mm slide, 120 format film guide and 4x5 transparency guide, all of sturdy plastic rather than the cardboard I've seen with other scanners), minimal printed documentation, software CD and Photoshop Elements CD. And it shipped very quickly direct from Amazon.com. The CanoScan 9950F works like a dream--it was out of the box, software installed, scanning immediately. Scanning slides took a little longer for me to figure out, partly because the very brief documentation follows procedures for 35mm film strips rather than slides as its main example. But the results are great--very high resolution (1200 dpi, can go up to 4800), clear, crisp, bright scans (the only downside is that it shows how dusty some of my slides are, but the software even has some fixes for that). And the scans are pretty quick--average of about 30 seconds per slide at 1200 dpi. Scanning paper documents is a snap, and you can do all the usual things like scan to a printer like a copy machine or to a PDF file. The USB 2.0 connection gives fast transfer rates and, unlike some of my other USB devices, putting the computer to sleep is no problem for this scanner--OS 10.4 will recognize it right after awakening. Plus, it looks very cool; scanner design was the least of my concerns here, but it's hard not to admire the sleek black and dark gray case, and it seems pretty sturdy as well. A few notes for the new buyer.... The Getting Started booklet is extremely minimal and skips some important things (the power button on the front of the scanner, for example!). It's mildly annoying that the instructions take you through procedures using the proprietary software ArcSoft PhotoStudio bundled with the scanner software, rather than Photoshop, which anyone who's serious about images will be using. (The scanner does ship with Photoshop Elements on a separate CD-Rom). It's even more annoying the way the software is installed as a group (it doesn't seem to be possible to skip installation of one piece and then go back and install it). None of the print documentation seems to explain the functions of the blue LED on the front of the scanner (OK, continuous means "on", slow flashing "standby" but what about the different speeds of flashing while scanning is going on?), nor are you told when it's okay to turn the machine off altogether (apparently any time when it's not actually scanning). Finally, there is some wiggle-room in the slide templates--I know this will be helpful to accommodate various kinds of slides, but it means that you'll want to make sure the slides are straight in the template before scanning: just slapping them on may result in having to rotate the images a bit later (I've used higher-end scanners with spring-loaded slide templates that do away with this problem). There are certainly much higher-end scanners out there for slides (and other film media), but when you think of the price of the CanoScan 9950F, it's a great bargain. I'm really happy with this so far; once I've scanned all my slides I've got plenty of other jobs to keep it busy!

I am very pleased with the speed of the scan, the ease of use and the options given for a custom scan. The speed function buttons on the front of the unit permit ease of use to make a copy, scan a page, make a page into a pdf or email a page. This unit does not have a document feeder so you can only work with one page at a time. I bought this particular unit because of the product description. My primary use of this scanner is to scan information into projects I am creating. The quality of the scan has been excellent. Sometimes I have an output problem from my printer though with green and that is not the fault of the scanner. The scanner quickly provides crisp images with usually good color. You can scan from within your computer program or select one of the speed buttoms on the scanner. It also comes with text editing software which will permit you to scan a page and change or add info to the document. I would purchase again from this vendor. I particularly love Canon products because they are serviced in the USA not India. I have found that Okidata also provides customer service through the USA, while HP provides customer service through India. I am disappointed in HP and use to buy nothing but HP products. Now, there isn't an HP product in my home or office. If other companies can provide customer service in the USA and still price their products to sell, why can't HP! Nancy B.

This is an excellent scanner that is easy to setup and run. I was scanning old color slides along with black & white and color negatives from the 60's with excellent results within an hour of unpacking, so I think it is safe to say that installation and operation was easy. The Adobe software that is bundled with the unit is powerful enough to rescue many 40 year plus old slides that were really faded. This was really nice to find, but the software is only a sample of an older version. Anyway I was impressed enough that I will be upgrading to the latest Adobe software soon. My only complaints are: First - a negative mask was not included for the old Kodak instamatic sized film. I am still working on a work around to let me do more than one negative at time, but I am sure it is there I just need to find it. Second - The lack of a printed operating manual. I miss being able to kick back in my recliner and review the documentation while relaxing in my living room, but this was a problem with my previous HP 4470c scanner, too. Overall, if you need to scan slides, negatives, or documents, this is an excellent machine that is well worth the money.

Given the excellent quality of most Canon products I will give them the benefit of the doubt and not comment on the hardware capabilities of this product. Suffice it to say that their software will preclude your being able to take full advantage of whatever it might be that this device is capable of. I don't know if the people who wrote the code for this scanner's TWAIN driver were actually trying to create the world's worst piece of software or if they just got lucky, but it is truly pathetic. Scanning a batch of slides? There are lots of controls for making adjustments to tone, brightness, contrast etc. But, do you think there is a way to make different adjustments to individual frames? Think again -- any adjustment you make will be applied globally. If there is some way around this, nobody at Canon Tech support was able to tell me how. A touted feature of this scanner is that it can scan at 16/48 bits and up to a hardware resolution of 4800 dpi. Try to scan at 4800 dpi in 48 bit color mode and it will tell you that this is "unsupported". Nice surprise. If I had known that I would not have bothered buying this. And speed -- did I tell you about that? Scanning an individual 35mm slide at maximum resolution, with the dust/scratch removal filter turned on will take perhaps 15 minutes (Mac OSX connected with Firewire). Finally a word about tech support. Don't even bother with the email tech support. All you will get back is a bunch of babble about how they value you as a customer and appreciate the opportunity to assist you, and then suggest you telephone a "technician". No, I am not a happy camper with this piece of equipment.

I have had Epson scanners in the past and was plagued with problems with every one of them. When I bought the Canon, I did not expect too much. I am delighted to say that it has been trouble-free. (I bought it about a year ago and waited until now to write this, so this report is based on lengthy experience.) I have had no technical problems with it whatsoever and it scans cleanly and quickly. I still have a bit of trouble with "OCR" and wish that the documentation were better or that there were an on-line "course" in how to use it. Other than that, everything is great. I would definitely buy it again.

I just bought my scanner 3 years ago and it has slowed down substantially. It worked great the 1st year. It just doesn't have longevity. I would have bought a cheaper one if I knew I would have to buy a new one every 3 years.

If you buy this scanner be sure to get it from somewhere like Amazon.com that will help you return it in case you find quality issues. The first scanner I received had a spec stuck to the back of the glass that appeared in all of my scans. Canon indicated that the unit needed to be serviced and they'd be happy to send me a refurbished one - no way. I returned it to Amazon and just received another, which has 2 specs, although in less conspicuous places. However after about a dozen scans I noticed more dust specs on the underside of the glass and the scan head has a lot of dust on it. It's a challenge enough keeping the dust off of the TOP of the glass, impossible to deal with the bottom. Maybe as the scanner has expanded production, manufacturing facility quality has degraded. So I'll be returning this one as well. The scanner does an excellent job scanning negatives, though it takes about 10 minutes for each 35mm frame at the highest resolution. If you do not plan to scan negatives and slides then consider other flatbed scanners that can scan photos just as well for less money. I have some gripes with the software ("FARE")- the image processing settings (ie backlight correction) are applied to all images being scanned vs. individual frames so the processing often ends up worsening the image characteristics - that's quite a flaw - hopefully it'll rectified by a future software update. I found it better to simply turn off all image processing when scanning multiple negatives and instead use Photoshop Elements or similar software on each - something you'll need to do anyway if you want to restore old images.

I recently purchased the 9950F for the specific purpose of scanning 35 mm slides. In the course of three weeks I scanned over 1700 slides with very good results. I found the colors to be excellent and true to the original slide. I scanned at 2400 dpi because I wanted enough resolution to use the pictures for slide shows. I also scanned several of the slides at 1200 dpi for a comparison and when projected on a 28 inch TV screen could see no difference in the 1200 and 2400 scans. The 1200 dpi scans took about 1 1/2 minutes on my computer and the 2400 dpi scans took slightly under 4 minutes/ slide. A few tips for good results: 1) always calibrate the scanner between each set of slides (the template holds 12 slides). 2) For slides with normal lighting I set the backlight correction to medium. For light slides I set this correction to low or off, For dark slides I set it to high. Since only one set of scan data are allowed for all of the slides in the template it is a good idea to group light slides together and dark slides together. 3) I used the dust/ scratch correction on medium and it did a good job. 4) Pull the slides tight against the bottom of the template slots. There is a little play here and if you don't do this your slides can get tipped at a small angle from the horizontal. The Canon scanning software failed me a few times when I did a large number of scans without reinitializing. When this happened, I usually lost at least one-half of the scans. To guard against this, I made it standard practice to load the software fresh for each scan. It takes almost no time to do this and it can save you some headaches. I found the Canon software a little clumsy to use, but managed to make it do what I wanted. For the money you can't beat this scanner for 35 mm slides. Considering that commercial places charge around 50 cents / slide to do this for you, I easily paid for the scanner 2 1/2 times. What a deal! -G. L. Kaes