5 Responses

1. S. Meyer says:

   October 20, 2010 at 2:08 am

   Review by S. Meyer for Canon CanoScan LiDE110 Color Image Scanner (4507B002)
   Rating:
   My new CanoScan Lide 110 arrived super quick. It is replacing a CanoScan 3000ex, as it would not work with Windows 7. Otherwise I would not have needed this new one. New one does scan faster and is also very good quality. I would have liked a longer USB cord, but that is minor and easily remedied. Need to read the manual a lot more, but so far very pleased.

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2. David O. Whitten says:

   October 20, 2010 at 2:58 am

   Review by David O. Whitten for Canon CanoScan LiDE110 Color Image Scanner (4507B002)
   Rating:
   I have a functioning HP scanner about four times as large as the Canon. HP is not providing software updates to allow me to use the scanner with Windows 7. So, I opted for a new scanner and determined it would not be an HP because of the software issue. The Canon, like every Canon product I own (camera, ink jet printer) is top-of-the-line and performs as expected. it is compact, easy to install, and easy to use. It took awhile to get used to putting material onto the glass upside down but that is a small matter.

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3. V. Bissonnette says:

   October 20, 2010 at 3:07 am

   Review by V. Bissonnette for Canon CanoScan LiDE110 Color Image Scanner (4507B002)
   Rating:
   It is interesting that this scanner does not have a separate power supply — it works off the power from the USB cable. So far, this scanner works fine with my iMac. My first few scans have resulted in very high quality results.

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4. Stoney says:

   October 20, 2010 at 3:13 am

   Review by Stoney for Canon CanoScan LiDE110 Color Image Scanner (4507B002)
   Rating:
   With a few caveats, this is a great little scanner. The best part is that it actually fits in my Targus computer case WITH my laptop. It weighs only 2-3 pds, and runs off USB power—no converter brick to haul around. Scans are sharp and fast.

   Unfortunately, the particular design of scanner is that (unlike most fat desktop scanners) it cannot scan 3D objects, therefore text near the spine of a book, which is not in actual and absolute contact with the glass, is very blurry. Nor can you just press down the book—this seems to warp the glass causing blurriness elsewhere on the page, and may even jam the scanning mechanism. Also, the lid is non-removable, which means that you may be out-of-luck if you need to scan part of a large object.

   Despite these limitations, the price and exceptional portability may make this series of scanners the choice for scanning books—because books which need to be scanned are often non-circulating items in libraries or archives.

   Compared to other scanners the “frame” framing the glass surface is low and only ca 3/8″ wide on the right side. So, if you have a circa 1/2″ inside margin, and place the right side of the scanner at the edge of a table, you can scan many books easily. You can get in tighter (to within 3/8″) by using a peice of stiff, 1/16″ thick, cardboard, ca 8 3/8″ X 11″, placed behind each page before scanning—it is a pain, but it works.

   If you do not plan to carry the scanner around much, you might consider a Canon LiDe 700. It has 2 major advantages. The right edge is actually flush with the glass surface (hurrah!!)—albeit there is still an unnecessarily wide margin. The lid opens 180 degrees, so you can scan portions of a large object.

   Your original must be ABSOLUTELY flat. Since the lid is light, a weight placed on top of the lid can help insure that the original is in full contact with the glass. A ca 1″ thick book is about the right weight.

   The foam “pressure pad” in the lid is a bit too soft to insure that some originals (such as stiff letters or receipts which have been folded) are pressed sufficiently flat (even with a book on top of the lid). If you notice this problem, then place a 8 1/2″ X 11″ piece of stiff cardboard (or a thin book) directly on top of your original, and close the lid

   Although some reviews imply that books thicker than 1″ cannot be scanned, because the “EZ-lid” only adjust to accomodate items up to 1″ thick—in fact, and despite the instructions, it is not essential to close the lid at all—so there is no practical limit on book thickness. Caveat—if you don’t close the lid, and if the entire glass surface is not covered by your book, then cover or shade any exposed glass from bright light (e.g., sunlight through a window or a very bright desk lamp). You can tape a strip of ordinary typing paper in place for this purpose, if necessary.

   Other reviewers have complained about not being able to scan at greater than 1200 dpi. If you want to scan at, say 2400 dpi, you have to type the value in manually in the driver software. However, such scans are very slow, and I have found no actual improvement in resolution (detail recorded).

   It is true that the scanner draws power only when scanning. That is NOT a great advantage when used with a portable computer as one reviewer implies. At least with my ThinkPad—scanning to a portable running on battery-power very seriously slows down scanning. Plan on having your portable plugged into an AC outlet if you plan to scan more than a few pages.

   Admittedly, the automatic settings work very well under most circumstances when scanning “typical” originals (and it is the only portion of the very annoying scanning program that the Canon geeks make any atttempt at improving). But what happens when the automatic settings do not produce good results? You are stuck with crappy scans—or you have to spend half a day learning how to use the “advanced settings”. My recommendation—use the “advanced settings” even for routine scans. You’ll become a scanning wizard in no-time—far better than any “automatic” program. It only takes a few more seconds for fine-tuning per scan once you know what you are doing.

   The very best scans are produced by using the “advanced settings”, and setting the tone curve manually, with all of the various options “off”. Pre-defining tone curves for your particular project makes the process a little easier. Unfortunately, you have to “summon” your pre-defined tone curve for each scan. Note particularly, pay attention when defining “all of the settings” that some of the settings, particularly color, resolution, and auto-tone have not reverted to the defaults. You have to define things in a particular order, or the defaults reset—-very annoying.

   If you want the best possible scans, you should save to tif—but the only tif files the scanner driver produces are huge uncompressed tif files. Solution: scan from a graphics program which allows you to save files as loss-less tif (LZW compression) which will produce files as small as 1/20 the size with no loss in detail.

   If it is incovenient to scan from a graphics program, you can scan to JPG. JPG files are always degraded by compression, but if saved nominally uncompressed, degredation does not become significant unless you repeatedly edit and save the files. Solution: scan as jpg, but convert the files to LZW tif before editing them in any way. LZW tif and uncompressed jpg files of the same image are about the same size

   PDF images generally default to ca 300dpi jpg-like compression—acceptable for most photos, but not for text. If you are scanning a mixture of images and text, scan as tif files at 1200 dpi and use Adobe Acrobat (or other pdf editor) to convert the tif files to pdf. Most pdf editors allow you to select the graphics quality—select “highest quality” — OR a specific dpi — OR disable “downsampling”. True, the scanning program itself has a “direct to PDF” function—but I do not use it since it offers no control over the process, which must be fine-tuned for best results.

   If you scan half-tone (screened) photos from books, magazines, etc. You can use Gausian blur (in your graphics editing program) to improve (descreen) them for viewing and printing. Use the lowest possible value which eliminates the dot pattern: typically, 4-5 pixels at 1200 dpi, 2-2.5 pixels at 600 dpi. True the scanning program itself has such a function, but offers no control of the degree of bluring.

   Don’t panic about the scary “unlock the scanner before using” notice in the instructions. If you try to scan with the scanner locked, it will tell you, “unlock me”. If so, just unlock it.

   This review was original written for the Lide 90 and subsequently the 200, and finally a 100, but since the only differences between these and the 110 is improvements to the automatic scanning function (which I do not use), this review applies just as well to the 110. Claims of higher speed for higher model numbers are misleading, but the “slower” scanners are noticeably quieter.

   After several thousand scans, the LiDE 90 began showing irregularities (as faint moire patterns) only when black and white half-tone photos were scanned at 1200dpi (or color half-tones scanned at 600 dpi or higher) and then descreened. So, I purchased an LiDE 200 as a replacement, which exhibited the same problem after another thousand or so scans, so I purchased and LiDE 100. The misalignment is not noticeable in scanned text or scanned continuous tone images.

   The scanners seem to have inadequate buffers, so that if you scan a full page in greyscale at 1200 dpi, or full-page color at 300 dpi or higher, the scanner stops and starts many times when scanning a single page. It is the stopping and starting which takes up most of the scanning time, which means that the REAL total difference in scanning times between the models is negligable. I suspect that it is also the stopping and starting which causes the wear and “stuttering” which causes the moire patterns, and ultimately wear on the mechanism. In my experience, the LiDE 100 scans slower than a LiDE 200, but stops and starts less (presumably because the buffer can keep up with the slower scanning speaed). So, the REAL scanning speed of the 100 is nearly as fast as the 200, and I suspect that it will be much less likely to develop these problems. I suspect that the same applies to the 110/210—the 110 is probably the prefered scanner for people like me who regularly scan large half-tone (screened) images high resolutions. But if you do NOT regularly scan large half-tone photos at high resolutions, then this doesn’t matter to you.

   It is a bit ridiculous that the drivers are not common between models. For example if you upgrade/downgrade from a 200 to a 100 (as I did), you have to deinstall the old drivers and install new drivers—even though the driver programs are identical. Moreover, the (identical) drivers are incompatible with each other. If you install the drivers for a LiDE 100, you cannot use a LiDE 200 on the computer without replacing the drivers. I would like to have continued using the 200 for routine scanning, and the 100 for high-res scanning of half-tone images—but I can’t, I can use one scanner or the other, not both. If the scanners were of different brands, I could have any number of scanning programs installed. Or, if I was using a 3rd party scanning program (with support for the various models), I could use both scanners.

   Suggestion to the Canon designers: If the frame was flush with the surface of the glass, and the frame (or margin) was narrower (less than 1/4 inch), at least on one side, this would be a great book scanner. The awkward drivers need major improvement.

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5. D. Malavase says:

   October 20, 2010 at 3:46 am

   Review by D. Malavase for Canon CanoScan LiDE110 Color Image Scanner (4507B002)
   Rating:
   This replaced my old UMax and I am blown away with the quality, size, speed and cost. Piece of cake to install on Win7 64 bit. The included software is very usable as well in advanced mode. The time they quote for per page at 300 dpi full page is accurate also.

   The only thing I didn’t like was the forced on install tray icons and applications. I really prefer to not have things always running in the taskbar if I’m not using it, which uses up resources. But that was easily changed in any case.

   Amazon delivered it fast as well and within a few days from my order date I was back scanning again.

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