Umax Powerlook 1100

The Powerlook 1100 is a FireWire scanner, so data transfer to your PC will occur faster than over most SCSI links. There are two FireWire ports, so you can daisy-chain devices, but you'll need a FireWire card or integrated port for your PC.

Three film holders are supplied for 35mm, 120 and 5 x 4 film. The 35mm slide tray holds 12 mounted transparencies at once so you can scan lots of trannies in a short time.

The optical resolution of 1200 horizontal x 2400 vertical provides good sharp results and, with reflective originals, resolves text at small point sizes cleanly, though at resolutions above this the interpolation introduces a noticeable softening of edges.

The quality of scans from 35mm trannies is reasonable, with vibrant colours, but falls well short of the standard required for most print reproduction purposes. The 1100 fared better with large format trannies, though.

The batch and auto scanning features make light work of many originals and are put to effective use in combination with the 35mm slide tray.

The preview scans the entire tray and selects the image areas, adding them as numbered 'frames' in the scan job list. You can then edit individual frames, changing the selection area in the preview window and editing scan settings. You can batch scan, using the same resolution and scan settings for each slide, or multiple scan with different settings.

Batch scanning of a half-loaded tray with seven images all at 1200dpi output resolution took a little over one minute. Multiple scanning the same set with resolutions from 150 to 2400dpi took just two minutes.

At this price, the Powerlook is a good option for small design businesses that deal primarily with reflective originals, but occasionally need to deal with trannies in quantity, at moderate output sizes, resolution and quality.

Contact: IMC 01344 871329
http:// www.umax.com