Plustek OpticFilm 7200 7200DPI Film Scanner

This scanner is fantastic. I'm only using the "quick scan" functions and I'm getting wonderful scans. I've scanned them at 2400 dpi and put them on my 42" plasma television. They look wonderful. Others have commented that the bundled software can be difficult to install or confusing. You don't need to install it or use it, not with a Windows XP machine anyway. I probably won't bother to install it. The scanner is well built. The slide holder is very nice - each slot is sort of spring loaded so the slides go in easy and they are held snug. The slide holder can go in either side and it is notched so you know when the slide is in the correct place. The instructions say to point the top of the slide toward the back of the scanner. This is fine for images that are landscape. For images that are portrait, you will have to rotate the slide 90 degrees or the scanner will crop your slide. I scanned slides at 1200 dpi and they still had plenty of detail for the 42" t.v. The color was a little off though. I suppose that could be corrected with software. Scanning at 24 dpi takes less than a minute. Be sure to get all the dust off the slides before scanning. I'm using a very soft paint brush right now. I will be getting some compressed air. If you using only the software for the quick scan function, you will get an icon in tray on your desktop. You double click on that icon and choose the initial settings for your scans - file type, dpi, file name, file location, etc. You can also tell the software to let you preview adjust the scans. After you make your choices, close the window and then you push the quick scan button on the scanner for each slide you scan. You can set the software so it will give you a preview of the slide. You can make additional adjustments and then click on the button in that window to do the final scan. The selection of the area it will scan is always off some, sometimes by a lot. It's easy enough to adjust so you get the whole slide. When the scanner is done with that slide, it saves the file where you told it with the name you gave it plus an increasing number and the window closes. Move the holder so the next slide is ready and push the quick scan button again. It is very simple. You don't need to be intimidated by software with this machine.

I needed a simple scanner for my old 35mm slides that was easy to use at a reasonable cost. I finally found this one and am very happy with it. So far, I have scanned about 600 slides and still going. Mostly, the program is automatic but allows me to do easy color and contrast adjustments. Easy is important to me as a beginner and I get nice quality, with a wide range of dpi-resolution settings. It also works well with my Vista software. A good choice for me and a good buy.

This product worked as advertised. No problems installing the software on Windows Vista, which gives a variety of editing options after scanning. I am very pleased with this setup.

Beautiful pictures & colours, even with QuickScan. SilverFast definitely needs computer savvy, so if you are computer shy stick to QuickScan - like its name, it is quick (and trivial). SilverFast on the other hand has great Global Colour Correction and Scratch Removal features. I use 3600 dpi for best results. The resultant file is indeed large; but who cares, in this day & age of limitless space hard disks and DVDs...

I am scanning slides at 1200 to 1800 dpi, using mostly the default color optimization and corrections on each slide. Some post-editing is required to remove blemishes from dirty slides, but I expected that. The SilverFast software was a little confusing to set up at first, but it works great! I am scanning slides at the rate of 2.5 minutes per slide, including minor touchup on a fraction of the resulting photos.

I am very pleased with this little scanner. The carrying case is a nice extra touch.