Canon CanoScan 8600F

Good value, feature packed scanner including a built-in film scanning hood

Canon’s CanoScan 8600F is a smartly svelte A4 scanner with built-in film scanning hood. It boasts a comprehensive set of features including 48bit depth colour (input and output, although this is inevitably down sampled by further processing and if you then make a subsequent print), plus 4800x9600ppi optical resolution and USB 2.0 connectivity to help keep data processing and delivery as fast as possible.

The silver scanner has a smart and shiny black 'go faster' strip across the top plate, that also houses the film strip scanner element and the seven EX Buttons for fast and direct scanning to email, quick 'scan to' PDF creation, copying, plus photo or film scanning.

Set up is a cinch and although the software install takes around 30 minutes, it is because the 8600 comes with a great set of software. For example the superb Adobe Photoshop Elements 4 is included.

There’s also LaserSoft’s excellent SilverFast SE to play with, a neat and powerful stand-alone scanning package also available via the TWAIN menu in software such as Photoshop.

Then of course you get the Canon driver software that works via the TWAIN menu in your image editing package and is activated by a press of the EZ Buttons so that you get fast, on screen prompts and control as you go for those scans initialized that way. Also provided are ArcSoft PhotoStudio, ScanSoft OmniPage SE, and Presto! PageManager. Phew!

Multiple scans can be achieved, and, because the scanner is supplied with film scanning holders for four mounted 35mm slides, 12 unmounted negatives or slides, you get a film guide for up to four 120-format slides or negs as well.

An interpolated resolution allows 19,200x19,200ppi scans, but the massive files sizes and the fact you don’t actually create extra detail (but extend the scan time dramatically) make it an option only for those who require enlargements.

Scanning is relatively fast but of course depends on the original’s size and the resolution you’re going to use, plus whether you have to apply the FARE processing. FARE utilises a second scan pass using infra red light to locate and identify accurately dust, scratches and anything not part of the actual film grain.

In this way it can use special processing algorithms to remove defects and help to restore faded colour. One down side is the more FARE processing used, the longer the scan time extends. However, it is worth the wait.

My old family 35mm-slides were scanned at 2400ppi and at 100% scaling, which took around three minutes each. Add in the FARE and total processing time extended to about five minutes. However, the images scanned were in bad shape and the FARE worked really well.

Looking at the split screen-style scan provided - the left half of the scan has no FARE applied to it - it's easy to immediately see how colour is improved and grain is reduced, dust suppressed and all without reducing fine detail.

Overall, scans are fast and colour is accurate, the 16bit per colour (48bit total input/output) is a tad misleading because as soon as the images are output to a printer or even brought into your editing software (unless it’s a professional package such as Photoshop, which can handle 16bit colour), down sampling to the normal 8bit rate is inevitable. However, it provides more data to start with – and some professional processing packages such as Photoshop can handle 16-bit images.