Canon CS9000F MKII CanoScan 9000F MKII Photo, Film and Negative Scanner, Flatbed

I noticed one major feature difference between the Epson V600 and Canon 9000f (MKII), Epson's driver is primarily closed source or proprietary and the Canon 9000f (MKII) driver is entirely open source code.There maybe some benefits with the closed source code Epson IScan driver, but history dictates products having open source code drivers usually rival products having only closed source code drivers. The main feature of open source code drivers, the code is backwards and forwards compatible with past and future operating systems. Also, open source code drivers tend to be always readily available, versus closed source code having a tendency of their download mirrors simply disappearing due to internal business decisions.There is a web page detailing some of the differences between the Epson V600 and Canon 9000f scanner models, by searching with an Internet search engine and using the search term "Epson V600 Canon 9000f MKII versus". This page listing the differences is published within the versus.com domain name.In brief, the Canon seems to win over the Epson unless you want 16 bit reflective grayscale scans, then the Epson V600 would be your choice. In practice, scanning black and white photos with a scanner not having 16 bit grayscale output can still be achieved by simply scanning in color 48 bit which outputs to 16 bit. Then open the image file using your photo editor and click "Image > Mode > Grayscale" to convert the RGB/color image to grayscale!Further reviews by filmscanner.com shows the following effective viewable resolution comparisons:Epson Perfection V600 Photo 1560ppi (less than a quarter of the claimed 6400ppi resolution)Epson Perfection V700 Photo 2300 dpi (less than 40% of the claimed 6400 dpi resolution)Epson Perfection V750 Photo 2300 dpi (less than 40% of the claimed 6400 dpi resolution)CAnon CAnoScan 9000F Mark II 1700 ppi (17% of the rated value of 9600ppi)Also, scanning photos (or reflective media and not negatives/positives) is limited to the manufacturer's 4800 dpi resolution on all scanners mentioned above. They're higher stated dpi/ppi resolutions are only for negative & positive media. Makes me wonder why more people by the Epson versus Canon. The Canon seems to be a far better deal all over, unless you're buying a Nikon (or other scanner) specifically for scanning negatives.Pros1) Open Sourced Linux Driver (ie. sane-backends "pixma")2) Many improvements over the Epson V600, such as better power management3) ScanGear (or IJ Utility included within the Canon Driver package) are useful and apparently adequate. ScanGear's Advanced menu without thumbnails appears to be very similar to Linux XSane with having a few additional customizations.4) Scanner seems very light weight, and I like the inside cover unique insertion, and can be easily removed for scanning negative/positive media.5) Power management is another huge plus. I always hated seeing my older scanner filament lights alwayspowered on.Cons1) Only able to perform 16 bit grayscale negatives/positives and color reflecctive media. Only 8 bit grayscale reflective (ie. Black and White Photo), versus the Epson V600 able to perform 16 bit negative & reflective grayscale media. Other than this, both are able to perform 16 bit color. But if 16 bit reflective grayscale is needed, then just scan the black and white photo as 16 bit depth color and then transform to black and white. (This is likely why Canon negated the 16-bit depth reflective grayscale feature, as reflective color scans support 16-bit depth color.)2) The My Image Garden software (680 MB) and Quick Menu are basically useless. These two pieces of software will not function within VirtualBox Windows XP session, using NVidia binary drivers & Linux. (The problem occurs with Virtual Box Windows' 2D/3D display acceleration, as these application's graphical interfaces apparently depend upon the acceleration.) However, any software usually bundled with any purchased hardware is basically useless, except usually the in-house created utility and drivers for operating the basic hardware components.3) Digital Ice or FARE (or scratch and dust fixing) seems like a gimmick for flat bed scanners, and only useful for scanning negatives. Hardware not specifically made for scanning negatives/positives, do not include the full version of the Digital ICE software for fixing negatives. Even then I've heard it's just best to perform all image fixing from within the Gimp or Adobe Photoshop, as automatic filters tend to provide unexpected results. The other option if you strongly desire the infrared image hardware fixing features, buy VueScan or other after-market proprietary software. If you have many negatives to scan, strongly consider buying hardware desired specifically for scanning negatives; and infrared image fixing is desired, buy VueScan or other third party capable software.TIP 1: Old 4x6 black and white photos are scanned in as color 16 bit (ie. Input 48 bits color) at 600 DPI and then transformed to grayscale from within the Gimp. Smaller photos will likely benefit from the higher 1200 DPI. Rotate as required and use; 1) Image > Mode > Grayscale, 2) Colors > Levels > Auto should produce good grayscale images. I tend to keep the initial scanned image file size at around 100MB.TIP 2: When working with old color photos, instead of using Auto Levels, try using Colors > Auto > Equalize.TIP 3: For Windows' operating system users, avoid installing My Image Garden (mig @ 680 MB) and the (Canon) Quick Menu software when prompted for selecting or deselecting installing software components. Only select to install the Adobe 1998 Profile and Canon Driver, for which the driver includes the IJ Utility and ScanGear. There will be no shortcuts created on the desktop until you make one using the Program Files entry shortcut. Also, update your driver and Adobe Profile by downloading the updated software online at Canon.com. The updates are several months older than the CD that was provided with my scanner. When using ScanGear, make sure to set file saving settings to TIFF instead of default JPEG for best results. There are no additional compression settings for TIFF files.TIP 4: For Linux users, Linux XSane includes an open source driver, with XSane able to scan at 16-bit depth for color reflective scans only. When scanning grayscale (or black and white) photos, scan in color (16 bit depth) as previously mentioned and then use the Gimp to convert the Image > Mode > Grayscale. Also CMS color management profiles are contained within the Canon driver CAB files. (ie. CNSN0D.ICC, CNSP0D.ICC, CNSR0D.ICC) Using hexedit, hexedit clearly displays each color ICC profile as negative, positive and reflective. You'll need to manually select the profiles when scanning either negative (ie. negative/positive) or reflective media. ImageMagick's identify or the Gimp is your friend for displaying scanned image file properties, or ensuring you're getting 16-bit depth scans. Save scanned image either as PNM or TIFF without any compression. Can also embed the scanner profile into the image. (ie. CNSR0D.ICC 212KB)TIP 5: ScanGear does not provide color profiles for negatives. VueScan does provide color profiles for negatives. (ie. Standard, Kodak, ...) When comparing scans from Canon ScanGear and VueScan, the ScanGear scans look very similar to VueScan except ScanGear's scans seem to be too colorful or over-saturated (eg. Lawn grass looking to comic book color green.) ScanGear's color negative scans also look slightly unnatural versus using VueScan after using "Lock Film Base Color"/"Lock Image Color" method. As such, VueScan scan's have a more realistic color look. If you're performing color scans, especially color negatives, it is likely best to invest the $80 for VueScan Professional. Some settings within VueScan seem tricky without hover-over hints, requiring some searching for definitions for configuration settings. VueScan works within Windows & Linux, including infrared fixing for negatives. I've read quite a few negative reviews for SilverFast. XSane (Sane for Linux) appears relatively good for reflective bed scanning, and barely adequate for somebody performing few negative scans. The nice feature with ScanGear, ScanGear's multiple auto cropping for negatives works well versus VueScan's multiple auto cropping. I tried to include the two photos comparing ScanGear to VueScan, but Amazon.com wouldn't permit the upload.Tip 6: Instead of using VueScan's preset negative color profiles (ie. KODAK GOLD 200 Gen 6 GOLD 200-6), it's said to be best and of little effort to perform the color profile yourself. Follow steps listed on VueScan's "Advanced Workflow Suggestions" (http://www.hamrick.com/vuescan/html/vuesc16.htm) and ignore the "Lock exposure" option as this option likely no longer exists. First set the Color > Negative Vendor to standard, then preview a negative and crop an area of print which is pure black for a negative. Perform a second preview (for the cropped black area) and then tick "Input > Lock film base color". The film for this roll of film is now color profiled. Using the preset negative color profiles, I've witnessed slightly brighter images (slightly washed-out) than using this custom profile method.TIP 7: I think the reason why many Linux Sane/XSane users migrate to VueScan; when scanning negatives, there is no complete infrared support and good color profiling (ie. ICC/ICM) support. Although there is infrared source code (ie. antidust.c), antidust.c support is currently not integrated into Sane/XSane or at all useful to end users. Although XSane does allow users to create their own medium definition, medium definitions cannot be used at the same time color profiling support is activated. (ie. CanoScan 9000F CNSN0D.ICC negative ICC/ICM, cannot use both the ICC and custom media definition for which are two color definition tactics apparently used at the same time from within VueScan and Canon's ScanGear.)TIP 6: When scanning negatives or film, whether color or black and white, first preview the negative then rectangle select an area of the negative's border. Click "Lock Film Base Color" and click preview again. Click "Lock Image Color" and click preview again. Now you can maximize the crop area and perform the final scan without worrying about black/white clipping or orange masks. (As they say, film or color film profiles suck! Just use this lock method workflow, providing far better results!)TIP 7: Preferably, save to RAW TIFF (not DNG) only and then use VueScan's "scan from file" function. This gives you a digital negative, for which you can later use DarkTable (or other RAW image manipulation application) for manually augmenting, or in my case for fool proof archiving.TIP 8: I haven't seen much difference between 4800 DPI and 9600 DPI, albeit 9600 DPI double or quadruples the file size. I just played with an UnSharp Mask and Gaussian Blur on a 4800 DPI image, and it turned-out looking very similar to the 9600 DPI scan, but with a far smaller file size. (The work piece was an old black and white photograph, and might see better results with recent color film.)

A much reviewed product. Also, some very good tech reviews on other web sites. I thought I might have something to add?I bought this scanner because my new printer/scanner "all in one" (a canon mx340) does not do a good job scanner photos (prints). I had a Mustek several years ago that stopped working, so without getting technical (yet), it was obvious that "all in one" was not very good.I borrowed an Epson V600 from a friend, and I could see easily that one can get much better scanner for <$200. And you can scan negatives/slides with some flatbed scanners, including both the 9000F and the V600. I expected this to be a bonus, but since they can scan negatives, I wanted to buy the best of the two. And that is all you should expect, the best of the class.Result. It is a 5 star value for scanning prints, not so good for negatives. I lot of this review is about negatives, because that is where the problems are.Reviews from serious photographic professionals make it clear that no flatbed scanner is very good at scanning small transparent originals (negatives or slides of 35mm and less). The problem is not just the resolution, but the dynamic range. This scanner can almost pick up everything you can see on a print, in fact everything a print records, but it cannot record the range of dark and light that a slide or negative holds. And you can use this extra light and dark information to fine tune your photographs with software like Photoshop or Lightroom (and many other packages). So do not let someone tell you it does not matter. There is information on slide or negative you can not even see with your eyes. This is much more important than you think, even if you are just going to adjust the brightness and contrast, very important if you plan to make adjustment to highlights are blacks etc.. Modern software lets you adjust things digitally (you needed to use dodging tools and filters to achieve in a dark room). But little can be done if the full range of brightness and color the negative records is not available. In fact, some of your negatives may not have been exposed optimally, the person printing them years ago (or the machine) may have adjusted the exposure of the prints (adjusted the brightness of your prints). OK maybe your perfect, but most people have shots that the exposure of the paper was adjusted to make the print better. Maybe it is true it does not matter to everyone, if you just want to recognize the faces and look at the perfectly exposed parts of the image on a computer screen... Otherwise this is a compromise. The scanners dynamic range is good enough for prints, but not optimal for negatives and slides. Still it might be the best in its class, it would still be worth 5 stars.I decided to try the 9000F mark II because it supports a feature which "might" slightly improve the scanning of negatives. Third party software like SilverFast and VueScan Pro can control exposure used for negatives and slides. These programs can even automatically combine two scans (high and low exposure) to produce a single file with more dynamic range. Vuescan calls this multi-exposure, and states it may be "sometimes" usefull. Silverfast calls it a similar name, and claims it makes the 9000F mark II work much better, according to SilverFast you really need multi-exposure. If the Epson V600 supports this type of operation, it is not clear to me, I tried VueScan and it did not list the capability (but that might be a "bug" in Vuescan). This in the end, is why I decided to try the Canon.Even with this feature, it is not a perfect scanner for negatives, slightly better than another flatbed that does not support exposure control. But the price is similar, and I'm used to canon software.The biggest fault to me is the resolution scandal. Canon claimed 9600dpi resolution is both true and very misleading. So misleading I cannot give it 5 stars. It really does scan at very high resolution (higher than most dedicated film scanners). But it is pointless, you cannot see film grain in the results because the focus of the optics is not good enough to make any use of 9600 dpi resolution (well not to produce very high resolution scans, but if you like pointlessly large files you will be happy.) There are dedicated "home" film scanners (for less than $300) that have better dynamic range, and better "real" resolution (you can often see the film grain on 400 speed film). These have true resolution of about 3000 dpi. The Epson V600 is not much better, I would not give it 5 starts either. I had read this in several good technical reviews, and I can confirm it now. @2400 dpi is just about as good as 9600dpi with this scanner. In fact, the included canon software (ij scan) refuses to scan a full 35mm image in 9600dpi, you have to find a very odd setting to enable such large images (not in canon software ij scan utility itself but in the shell program that launches ij scan utility). Even then, you still get warnings about such "huge" images. Very funny, they advertise 9600dpi, and then try to stop you from doing it? The Engineers may not be too happy with the Marketing department? The lie makes the scanner not worth 5 stars, it is not what it is advertised to be. The scanner is also so slow in 9600 dpi mode, it is painful. It is not the only fault with the scanner, but the most serious one in a less than $200 dollar scanner.BTW, it seems from my research (actually I read some stuff) that if you already own a full frame digital 35mm SLR camera with more than 14M. You already own a good scanner for 35mm slides and negatives. You Just need two other things, a good macro-lens and a slide copier. In fact, a digital camera might be the best scanner available for 35 slides and negatives if you build your own slide copier. Makes sense, you have a very high end camera chip and a lot of control. You can use HDR techniques, and the type of software that creates panoramic images from multiple shots to capture all the resolution and dynamic range that the film or negative holds. But maybe not so convenient? After I'm done digging through old negatives, I plan to try the camera thing, but only with my best negatives. Some day when I have time?... Like, after I'm dead. Canon or Nikon should make a kit for the crop frame SLRs and full frame SLR. They have the skill and it mostly just a combination of there own equipment.Scanning prints:I like this scanner for scanning prints very much, and I think it is about equal to Epson V600 (I have scanned a few things with both.) The only thing that might be better is the noise. There is noise in the scans that does not average out with multiple scans, or averaging away when high resolution scans or converted to medium resolution. But at $200, I think this is very, very good. The packaged software is good enough. Canon does send a lot of extra software that is not really useful, at least to someone who also has all in one printer/scanner and Lightroom. It is mostly intended to make routine things like photocopying easier, but for me it is waste, and I would rather it be easy to install just IJ scan. I'm not saying it is bad software, I do not use it or need it. Silverfast and Vuescan support this scanner. But unless you are needed to calibrate the scanner with a color standard, I do not see anything useful for scanning prints. The built in color correction does a nice job, the scanned images look very much like the originals on my monitor. Printing is another matter, but this is not a printer. Some say the scanning software is hard to use. To me it seems pretty good. It allows 24 and 48 color bit Tiff files, 16-bit bw tiff, as well as other formats.The warm up time is as advertised nearly instant. Basically you can scan in 1-3 seconds after turning it on. Very nice.Scanning Negative:One small fault is about the color balance. The build in software does not correct for different types of color negative films at all (at least I do not see it). This would be nice, because different types of film are different. A slide and a print get looked at by the human eye. Negatives were not meant for this, and the chemists take advantage of this. The Silverfast demo did well with several types of Kodak Royal Gold and Max films, but Vuescan did not (although at least it attempts too). I understand it comes bundled with Silverfast in Europe. I can see why. But Silverfast is as expensive as this scanner and will only work with one scanner (you select it to get a license). Vuescan is about $75 dollars and works with all the scanners you have with free lifetime upgrades. I actually already owned it from years ago. Since it supports multi-exposure with this scanner it is what I used for negatives.For scanning negatives I have found that indeed the multi-exposure feature in VueScan does help the dynamic range a little. Just a little, less than I hoped. I have happened to have few large prints that I had developed in a series of exposures, prints made from the same negative with different exposures of the paper. So a sort of paper multi-exposure that has been waiting to be digitized. Using a free HDR like program (Enfuse) I combined scans of these prints. This result was a better dynamic range then I got from using the multi-exposure feature in Vuescan pro when I scanned the original negative. The multi-exposure of the negative did allow better adjustments of highlights in Lightroom than the simple scan. So multi-exposure is good, but not great. And I find that I can very slightly tell the difference between a 2400dpi scan and a 4800dpi scan. But the 4800dpi scan is reasonable fast, so I used it. So, it is good "enough" for most 35mm negative that do not require much brightness and contrast adjustment, and which you do not plan to print in 8x10" (or larger format). And good enough to tell which negatives are worth more work. Maybe send a few to a scanning service. I did not get a chance to try Silverfast with the 9000F mark II, my free trial expired while I was playing with the Epson V600. But Vuescan works fairly well.I think I found a bug in Vuescan that is very hard to live with because it affects the only reason I bought it. I first upgraded to version 9.5.24. The program has a 64-bit version and 32-bit version (for Windows 32-bit X86). A few days later I was offered 9.5.25. When I upgraded the 64-bit version, I stopped seeing the multi-exposer option. Or maybe it never worked in 64-bit; I do not remember which shortcut I was using. Now I have to use the 32-bit (not upgraded) version, it works OK, but I'm afraid to upgrade it and free upgrades are included for life!The Near Infrared based dust removal works well for me. (Dust removal on the Epson V600 was equal). The Near IR only works for negatives and some slides, but this is a great feature in a <$200 scanner.So far I noticed a few times when the software has stopped, and I had to turn the scanner on and off. But this is not as bad as with the old scanner I owned years ago. It also happened when I tried out the V600. It happened with both cannon software and Vuescan, but Vuesan is more of a problem. Turn the scanner off and Vuescan generally unfreezes.I do not have many faded and stretched items to scan, so I cannot comment on that part of the software. I would likely use software that is not bundled with the scanner for this anyway, I have a few programs. Reading other reviews, it seems most people like the canon software for the price.The OCR works as well as I expected. Wish is not very good. Much better than a few years ago. And it might be very useful. It actually worked better than the OCR on my all in one scanner/printer. Not sure why? It is a Canon and it is has a paper-feeder, just the right hardware for OCR.I always read 1 start reviews. If a lot of them are about the item failing in the first weeks, I assume the percent of one star reviews is an indication of the quality. But I also want to see if the complaints are valid.Some of the only 1 star reviews do seem to be concerned with broken scanners, some arrived defected. But several concern the fact the negative trays might break. One person gave it one star based entirely on the opinion that that they were easy to break and hard to replace. Although, his are not broken? (1 star??). Yet I would not be surprised if the plastic might break someday. Indeed I find them expensive and difficult to replace (see some links below). There are third party trays, but the cost at least 25% of the scanner price. You need something like these holders for negatives. You do not want to just put them on the glass; they would have nothing on top of them and will curve, touching the glass plate in just one spot, and not giving a uniform scan focus. You could place a glass plate on top, but that causes artifacts and rings that can be very bad. So a good holder is needed to prevent Newton rings and other artifacts.BTW, the negative holder is not very good at stopping the film from curling toward the emulsion side. (The emulsion (the not so shiny) side goes down in the scanner, you can see the difference in large flat areas of negatives, like blue sky). The holder helps, but my negatives are still a little curved. So far, I have not scanned a negative with a critically perfect focus to worry about. (I take a lot of photos of waterfalls and rivers with long exposures, they are focus but soft, and I have started with these.) Of course many pictures of family and friends (not the kind of thing you want a super hard focus in the center for). So the curvature is not too bad for me... yet. I do have some negatives that I really want to capture all the sharpness possible. One of the links below is about a trick with toothpicks to fix the curvature problem; another is for a special kind of glass that does not cause problems, it can flatten the curvature of the negatives. I have not tried any of these yet, just passing along the info. If the holder brakes, I sure I could rig something.Curved negatives links and film holder links:"[...]""[...]""[...]"European website that sells oem 35mm negative/film strip holder (could not find a US site, but one is listed in the comment section of a 1 star review)"[...]"After market negative holders, even for odd sizes like 110."filmscanusa.net/CanoScan-9000F-MKII-9000F-8800F-9950F-8900F-8600F-8400F-9000F.htm"