Epson Expression® 1680 Professional Flatbed Scanner

Pros: So far, I can't find a thing wrong with my Epson Expression Scanner
Cons: Ease of use, clear directions, quality output.

After working in the printing field for 25 years, I decided to start my own small graphics business. After I bought my G-4 Macintosh, I knew my next priority was a scanner. I needed a high-quality scanner, as I anticipated having to scan hi-res photos and ...

Pros: very fast, great job with color, picks up all details
Cons: Glossy photo scans can be streaky, slide scans look blurry

I am a professional scanner. A "scanmaster" if you will... that is actually the production credit I receive in a magazine publication I scan for. So I've done quite a bit of scanning: paintings, b&w line art, color art, grayscale art, photographs, ...

Pros: Very stable, reliable, great quality, easy to use and hookup
Cons: If I had to buy this again I would get the FireWire or SCSI version.

I work in a biomedical science laboratory and we frequently need to scan film and histology slides. This scanner is the best product out there for doing this. I can scan 16 bit grayscale and at so high resolution that something the size of a fingertip will fill my screen at 1x.

The scanner comes with LaserSoft SilverFast - a product that by it self cost almost 200 bucks. This works as a plugin for photoshop and allows you full control of all the features of the scanner. This software is absolutely essential to get the full features out of this scanner.

I have the USB version of the scanner which means that it can be a little slow to scan since I use 1600 dpi. But eventhough the output is usually in the 100's of megabytes - silverfast and photoshop handle it without trouble. I run the scanner off a P4 PC with about 500 Mb RAM - and everything runs great.