ScanMaker i900

PC World

The Microtek ScanMaker i900 is an industrial-strength flatbed capable of producing high-quality scans from both printed documents and transparencies. Though the i900 costs a premium, it's justified by the quality, versatility and durability this well-engineered scanner offers graphic artists, photographers and service bureaus.

Pros

  • Large bed, high optical resolution, good image restoration tools, high scan quality

Cons

  • Slow

Bottom Line

The Microtek ScanMaker i900 produces high-quality images from both prints and transparencies that will charm graphics pros, but its poky performance requires patience.

Would you buy this?

  • Price

    $ 1,995.00 (AUD)

Special Offers

The i900 is a worthy successor to the highly regarded ScanMaker 8700 Pro Design, a longtime favourite on the corporate list, and it provides many of the same outstanding features, such as its generous 8.5" x 14" scan area, powerful scanning software, and unique tools. But the i900 also features major improvements over its predecessor, including a much higher optical resolution of 3200 x 6400dpi (up from 2400 by 4800dpi), the faster USB 2.0 interface instead of USB 1.1, and Digital ICE Photo Print Technology, which is a marvel at removing imperfections (such as scratches, cracks and tears) from original reflective art.

In our image-quality tests, the i900 yielded realistic colour images with distinct details. For instance, the i900 brilliantly scanned a 4" x 5" colour photo (at 100dpi), reproducing very accurate colour, brightness and contrast, with discernable details in both the light and dark areas. It also accurately displayed the fine lines, small fonts and arduous geometrics of a challenging monochrome test pattern, scanned at maximum resolution.

It was slow, however. In some cases, the i900 took nearly twice as long to complete a scan as comparable scanners during our tests. For example, the i900 took more than 26 seconds to scan a 4" x 5" colour photo (at 100dpi). Its close competitor, the Epson Perfection 4870 Photo, performed the same scan in about 14 seconds via FireWire.

Weighing 11.3 kilograms, the i900 is much heavier than competing scanners, but it puts its size to good use. Unlike most dual-purpose flatbeds, the i900 has an internal sliding drawer for scanning film transparencies, and it comes with several sturdy film holders that make it easy to place 35mm slides, filmstrips and other film sizes in the drawer. The advantage of using the i900 to scan film internally is that, like a dedicated film scanner, it permits glassless scanning; this eliminates the possibility of introducing distortions such as Newton Rings (an undesirable series of concentric circles). Using the film holders, you can batch scan up to a dozen 35mm slides or frames (from 35mm filmstrips). Other included accessories let you scan medium-format 120mm film and film transparencies up to 8" x 10".

In informal tests, we found that the i900's Digital ICE feature did a fine job of repairing damaged photos. Scans of transparencies with artifacts from dust or scratches have to be cleaned up with LaserSoft Imaging's SilverFast AI 6, which also performs sophisticated colour correction.

The i900 performed well when scanning film and produced excellent-quality images from both 35mm slides and film negatives, with bright colours and crisp details. The Microtek TWAIN scanner driver (ScanWizard Pro), used for most of our tests, also includes a restoration-restoration option that did a good job of correcting colour in faded originals. Other software bundled with the i900 includes an image editor (Adobe Photoshop Elements 2), an image manager (Ulead Photo Explorer 7), and an OCR package (ABBYY FineReader 5 Sprint), as well as colour management and calibration tools (targets and profiles).

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