Canon Canoscan FS4000US

***** software disc not included***** The CanoScan FS4000US is a typical size for a desktop film scanner, although its elongated shape means it's difficult to make our standard comparison to a thick book standing on its spine. The FS4000 has about the same cross-section as a book, but is a good bit longer, with overall dimensions of 3.6 x 14.5 x 5.7 inches (92 x 368 x 144 mm). It weighs about 5.3 pounds (2.4 kg). While it's longer than some scanners, the film holders don't project out the back of the unit as those of some models do, meaning you don't need to allow any more space at the back of the unit than is required to provide clearance for the connecting cables. Speaking of connections, the FS4000US has both SCSI-2 and USB interface ports on its rear panel, the SCSI connection presumably being somewhat higher-speed than the USB one. (We only tested our evaluation unit using the SCSI connection.) Older Macs (beige PowerMacs and before) come with SCSI ports built in, other computers will require the addition of a SCSI interface card if you want to take advantage of the higher-speed interface. Most current computers, whether Macs or PCs have USB ports though, so the scanner should be able to be used "out of the box" with just about any computer built in the last few years. The scanner ships with a nice set of software on the accompanying CD, with good support of both Mac and PC computing platforms. Both Mac and PC users will find a copy of Adobe's excellent Photoshop LE, along with Canon's FilmGet FS acquire plug-in that operates the scanner. (The scanner is operated from within Photoshop, allowing immediate adjustment or editing of the images as soon as they're acquired.) Arcsoft's PhotoBase image database program is also provided for both platforms. For printing, the two platforms diverge slightly, with Canon's ImageBrowser offered to meet Mac users' printing needs, and Canon's PhotoRecord dedicated photo-printing package provided for Windows users. Of the two, PhotoRecord provides much more flexible printing capabilities, ImageBrowser being mainly intended for use as a photo-organizer tool. Still, it's nice to see support as well-balanced between Mac and PC platforms as it is. Scanning resolution can be as high as 4000dpi, producing a maximum image size of 5888 x 4000 pixels with 35mm film, for a file size of 64 megabytes. Beyond its basic scanning resolution though, we also found the FS4000's lens system to be one of the sharpest we've seen to date, and the overall resolution and detail delivered by the scanner is among the highest we've seen to date. (June, 2001.) Bit depth is another important parameter for scanners, as a measure of both color accuracy and the maximum density range a scanner can recognize. (8 bits per channel is average 10 better, and12 quite good. A few scanners are now beginning to appear with 14 bits per channel of digitization accuracy.) The CanoScan FS4000 captures a full 14 bits per channel, and furthermore allows you to import the full 42 bit image (14 bits in each of three color channels) into Photoshop.

Condition

Used (normal wear)