#Best cheap fast photo scanner auto feed software#

Bit depth – This refers to the depth at which a scanner reads an image, and will affect the color accuracy in your scanned image.

If you intend to enlarge your images or use them as prints, you’ll need to be looking at 3200dpi at the very least. If your needs are just general use such as backing images up or using them for websites, you’ll get plenty of detail from between 3dpi. If they’re just for web usage you can cope with lower resolutions, but for print you’ll need more dots-per-inch (dpi) to ensure that your images look crisp and clean.

Resolution – Decide how much detail you need from your images, and how you plan to use the scans.

The higher-end offerings provide color calibration, which is a big draw for serious users. SilverFast is also a big name in scanning software, so keep an eye out for this.

#Best cheap fast photo scanner auto feed software#

This is what often affects the price of a scanner, so if you’re going to rely on inbuilt software to touch up images it’s worth paying more for the premium option. Kodak’s Digital ICE software features within many scanners on the market right now, and manufacturers pay different levels of royalties depending on whether they buy the basic or premium option from Kodak.

Software – Hardware is often the same in photo scanners, so it’s the software that tends to differ.Stick to cheaper, slower options if you have plenty of time or not many photographs to scan. The fastest scanners on the market right now can handle one photo every second, but you’ll pay a premium for this convenience. Speed – If you’re planning on using a scanner for large archiving projects, or you think you’ll use it regularly, it’s worth paying more for a faster model.If you’re only intending to use the scanner for photos that aren’t sentimental or delicate, sheet-fed might be fine: just take care when operating it. The reason for this is that running a delicate photo through a sheet-fed document scanner is more likely to damage the item, even if you’ve put it in a sleeve first.

Design – Flatbed is the better option for photo scanning, and is the most common design for this type of scanner.Will it just be photographs, and if so, will they be larger than 8 x 10 inches? Will you solely be scanning film? Maybe you will need to work with both formats? There are plenty of options that do one or the other, and several that can handle both types of media, so this will start to help you narrow down your choices. Media – Some scanners are only capable of scanning a single format, and so you need to decide what you want to scan.