I'm about done all my slides and negs; time to start on the old prints.
My flatbed is an HP 6200c. Last time I wantered through CompUSA, it looked
like home-use scanners have come a long way - both in lower price and slicker
appearence.
Do any of them offer significantly better functionality than the 6200?
I have 10 year old HP IIcx, 24bit color depth, 400ppi flatbed (2 of them,
acutally).
As far as I can tell, it scans photo prints as well as 48 bit 2400ppi
scanners and even though I have a flatbed with better specs, I seldom use
it.
Why? Because of the inherent resolution (or lack of it) OF the print
itself.
The only times I've needed more than these old puppies can deliver have
been the few occassions I've needed higher rez lineart scans or needing
to bring something postage stamp size up to 8x10 or larger.
Also, they're legal size beds, and I have a full coverage tranny adaptor
on one of them. (NOT for conventional film of course, but very handy for
doing passable proof sheets from 36 negs or 20 slides and VERY good for
larger gel/xray type work. Also, it's a very deep bed design, and has
remarkable depth of field for 3D objects.
Which is a long way around to say, if your scanner physical works okay,
it should be just fine and dandy, and would be overkill to replace it for
flat copy scanning purposes with a higher capability model.
