Canon CanoScan 8800F

Just got the CanoScan LiDE 600F myself and am very happy with it. As you said, a separate film attachment which you need to store away when done, but good quality scans and easy to use. Once you've finished scanning in all your negs and remove the attachment, it's a very low profile sleek looking unit.

I have also been looking for a good flatbed for my new 24" iMac.

I was impressed with the Canon 600F until I found the following review on Amazon:


Q U O T E:

Sleek sexy scanner, but terrible software! Mac users avoid!,
September 19, 2006

By Navarro L. Parker "Motion Graphics Dude"

The CanoScan 600F is an incredibly sleek, thin and lightweight scanner. It's also quiet and can be used vertically. Another plus is that it requires no power cord. One simple USB cable provides both power and data transfer. It also has some remarkable automatic tools to restore faded photos. It can also remove dust and scratches by using a separate infrared scan. Pretty cool!

Unfortunately, you have to use Canon's miserable software to access these features. And if you are a Mac user who is used to sleek, good looking interfaces, be prepared for a fright! Canon installs this terrible third rate Photoshop knockoff that forces you to scan within the program. (It, of course, isn't Universal Binary) The interface is what I'd expect from some shareware Windows 95 program, not one of the top global imaging companies.

You can avoid this monstrosity by using Mac OS X's Image Capture or the VueScan, but then you can't use the image restoration features. Additionally, I never got the function buttons on the scanner to work. It appears the minimal amount of work went into making this work on a Mac, which is very disappointing.

jimmygreen said:

I'll be using photoshop so I don't need great things on the software front - except plug and play functionality under Leopard (is that too much to hope for?!?)

I've decided against the epson now as build quality doesn't seem to be as good (according to amazon reviews) so it's between the LiDE 600F and the 8800F. Both have the same software so if anyone out there is using the 8800F I'd love to hear some opinions.

Click to expand...

I currently own an "Epson Perfection 3170 Photo" and my impression is that the build quality is considerably less than that of my earlier HP scanner. Granted, this is subjective, but my career has been electronics hardware design; and I like this product less than I do the older HP that I owned. So, your conclusion about the Epson probably has merit. Also, the software for Windows on the 3170 is "fair" at best; and the Mac version of the 3170 software really sucks.

You mention that you will be using Photoshop. Is that the full program or the "elements" version? I plan to buy the Mac Photoshop Elements when it is released for the Intel hardware, so I am hoping that is the best scanner software solution.

jimmygreen said:

I've decided to go for the 8800F in the end. I'll let you know how it goes.

Click to expand...

Please do follow-up with your findings and impressions of the 8800F.

Thanks,
L

jimmygreen said:

Hi,

I'm about to purchase a flatbed scanner and would appreciate some advice
In regular use I'll be using it to scan drawings but I also plan to archive a load of old photos and 35mm negatives so this is a consideration. I don't need to scan slides. I'll be connecting it to an iMac 24" alu running Leopard.

I've narrowed my search to three contenders:
CanoScan 8800F - good at handling film, newest model, fast
CanoScan LiDE 600F - small footprint, USB powered BUT fiddly film attachment
Epson Perfection 4490 Photo - good image quality BUT two years old now

Is anybody out there using the 8800F with Leopard? Is the film tray and speed of scanning worth the slight sacrifice in image quality over the Epson? Any users of any of these scanners please stand up!

Thanks!

Click to expand...

Which scanner did you get? How do you like it?

Josh

Just Bought the Canon 8800F, as I have a lot of film/magazine articles/photos etc that need to be archived in good quality.
I liked the Canon inkjet printers, and I found the software/drivers that came with the printers to be tolerable on OS X, so I decided to get a Canon Scanner.

Impressions: The Software/Driver for this scanner is TERRIBLE
I'm not even sure if it's leopard compatible, because I seem to get "Failed to open driver" 3/4 of the time. The "one touch" buttons on the top of the scanner can be configured with this piece of sofware called "MP Navigator EX" (who the hell names these things), which is an ugly-ass direct port from the windows version. However when I click the buttons it loads OS X's Image capture instead.
The other half of the scanner software (the more advanced settings) are within a piece of software called "Scangear Starter" (Which sucks balls also), and fails all the time.

Final Word: I wish Canon would get their **** together for mac users. I can tolerate this kind of trash on Windows, but on OS X the apps are supposed to be consistent and work together, not this steaming pile of crap of apps they have delivered to me.

I would prefer them to just write a decent driver so that I could use all the scanner's functions within Image Capture, because currently the only function that can be used is flatbed mode, and none of the other modes (film/slide scanning) can be accessed through Image Capture.

I guess that's what you get when it says "Made for Windows Vista" on the side of the box, and no mention of OS X except for a tiny footnote in the system requirements.
I will load the software onto an XP box and use that in the interim. Not too impressed with my $399 NZ scanner purchase

The software supplied with the Lide 600F is truly awful. Do not touch it if you have an Intel Mac or expect things to have moved on from OS 8.6.

The hardware is slow and fiddly too.

Just bought the 8800F

I had researched and actualy purchased 4 other models, V750, i900, i800, and M1. I found that yes, they are all great scanners, microtek better with images and size, epson with driver, but for less than 1/3 I bought the 880F. I have a Nikon V, so slides and negs were not an issue, just 120 and a few 8x10 from my early days. I have found the Canon to be a precise and accurate scanner. For $178 delivered, I believe I have made the correct choice. I may rty using Vuescan, but am unsure if FARE works with it.

canon 8800f hardware good, driver and software sucks

I just bought a Canon 8800f scanner and use it with a macbook pro with MacOs X 10.5. My main use is for scanning books/book sections. The hardeware is quite well. It realy makes in 7 seconds a scan with 300dpi that makes for a good copy when printed on a laserprinter (HP 2200 DTN). If you scan with 600dpi it takes the doble of time and the quality increases slightly.

But before you can do all this, it is realy a pain to get the necesary software installed. The installation CD only works if you are logged in with an administator account. (No possibility to run the specific installation routine from within an normal account with an identification of an administrator account). To finish the installation you need to restart the whole computer! (Thats the first time I need that on a Mac unless it is a MacOS update). Afterwards the scan software and also the Omnipage OCR software only works if you ar working from the administrator account you installed the software!

Luckily I could download the scaner drivers from the canon homepage (ScanGear for MacOS X version 13.9.0 which ist compatiblie up to macos x 10.5). This version was possible to install from within the normal log in account and run as administrator, so I am at least able to use the scanner as scanner from my normal log in account.

But the OmniPage Software still does not work and since it is commercially sold there is no way to get a version on download. When I try to send an document from scangear to the software or try to scan a document from within the omnipage software there alway appears a warning, that the "document1" can not open and please check if it does exist. Sometimes even worse if you click the obligatory "ok" button instantly appears a new warning with the same text about "document2" and so on I tried it up to "document 125" and than decided to kill the whole process from MacOs.

The only way to test OmniPage was to use it from the administrator account I installed it with. And the recognition was reasonable but not realy good. For example it did not recognized correctly the numbers for footnotes as such. And on a scan with two book pages I had to check about 20 cases of doubt from which 7 where realy false. So still a lot of work to correct. And that was a simple page from a scientific journal in book format, nothing complicated.

So in resume: Canon build good hardware but the bundled software ist a pain in the ass for every Mac User!!!

The Canoscan 8800F I purchased in late 2007 has never worked right with my Macs on a consistent basis. I suspect the product may be defective because sometimes it only does partial scans of what's on the scanner glass. I've tried downloading new drivers, etc. to no avail. The weird thing is it can work normally for a stretch, fully scanning many documents in a row, before suddenly kicking back into only scanning part of the upper portion of the document.

I decided to stop purchasing Canon products after I had troubles with two of their digital cameras and now this crazy scanner. I'll never buy a Canon product again.