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Out of interest how do you find the Plustek film scanner? I’m trying to decide between the 7600i or a more expensive Coolscan…

I think these things are only as good as they are easy to use. The interface – SilverFast – is notoriously confusing. I’ve only tried using it a couple of times. The first few times took >30 mins to get the settings right, but now I can start scanning after a couple of minutes, and the scan with 2 passes takes about 4-5 minutes.

I’ve found that you tend to get a strange magenta colour cast with Kodak Portra (which is all I’ve tried so far) and have found it quite tricky to get the right balance. I’ve been getting it as close as I can then using Capture NX2 to do a global colour balance adjustment to fine tune it.

The proof o the pudding is in the eating.

This is a scan I made with the plustek: http://www.flickr.com/photos/richardfisher/4667733886/

and here is an automated scan done at Boots: http://www.flickr.com/photos/richardfisher/4659333459/

I’m actually very happy with the results. I’ve seen other scans using this machine and software and feel it is able to produce decent results. I never looked at the coolscan series as they were far in excess of my budget. Where do you live because in Germany there is a scanner called the Reflecta Crystalscan which works with the same SilverFast software and produces good results. I was planning on getting that but couldn’t find a distributor in the UK.

Hope that helps.

woooooow so much stuff :-O