Flatbed Scanner

[saga]

Hey everyone,
I wanted to post this here, since it is about photography (kinda). What is a good flatbed scanner. Of course I do have a price limit, and I know it isn't much. I can spend about $150, and I agree that you get what you pay for. I have a bunch of prints that I need to get on my MB. I do have access to some scanners at work, but wanted to scan in comfort of my own home. Any suggestions welcome.
thanks

 

[ChrisA]

Hey everyone,
I wanted to post this here, since it is about photography (kinda). What is a good flatbed scanner. Of course I do have a price limit, and I know it isn't much. I can spend about $150, and I agree that you get what you pay for. I have a bunch of prints that I need to get on my MB. I do have access to some scanners at work, but wanted to scan in comfort of my own home. Any suggestions welcome.
thanks

Almost any scanner can do a good job with prints. It is not a very demanding job. Scaning at 300 DPI is good enough for most uses and 600 DPI will be overkill except for the best profesionaly made prints. Prints don't have much dynamic range either.

Do you have access to the negatives? If so you will get _much_ better results. If fact scanned negatives even if you use a flatbed scanner can produce better image quality than a DSLR. If you can get to the negatives you should look for a scanner that can do 4800 DPI and has a Dmax of near 4.0.

The best place to buy a scanner is the Epson web site's "refurbs" page. They sell scanners there at good discount (as much as 1/2 off)

 

[ChrisBrightwell]

I have an old Canon LiDE 20 that works beautifully.