This is a well-designed product. Easy to use, fast, reliable, nice-looking.Here are its best features:1. Copy Scanned then immediately printed (the computer must be on, but no interaction is required).2. Scan Grab a photo and either a) Write it to disk, or b) Send it to Photoshop (whitespace already trimmed!)3. Create PDF To scan a multi-page document, then send a single file to someone, the scanner will create a PDF. Press one button to add a page and another button to complete the PDF.4. E-Mail This button scans a smaller version, then automatically opens a New E-Mail window. Just type your message, then click Send.Pressing a button on the scanner not only starts the scanning process, but opens the software interface on the computer. This can come in handy, as mentioned below. There is an option place several scans into a single PDF file. I find this very useful.This is NOT a small scanner (it's nearly a foot wide and 1 1/2 times that deep). But it's the best I've found. Fast startup, reasonably quick scanning, great quality, and usable software. The LED lighting really makes a difference. I hate waiting for scanners/copiers to warm up. And with this scanner, there is no wait. Even if you leave it off, from the time you press the On button, it pops up its interface on the computer and is ready to scan in 5 seconds. Press Scan Photo and in 15 more seconds, your scan is waiting for you in Photoshop (assuming Photoshop is already running): * 3-5 secs to begin scanning once a button is pressed * 6 secs to scan the image/document * 2-3 secs to transfer it to the computerThe software could be better:a) It could be better named. It's difficult to remember that it's called "MP Navigator". I find myself hunting for it every time I want to bring up the software interface manually. What was that called again...? Searching for "scanner" or "8800" in your Windows 7 Start menu, for example, won't find it. So create a Shortcut to it named "Scanner" so you can easily find it when you want to complete a scan without walking over to the scanner.b) It brings up a modal dialog before/during scanning (!) Each time a scan is started, the scanner software comes to the front, intercepting any keyboard input. This is very annoying if you're trying to work in the background while scanning. For example, if you're retouching one image while scanning the next, a moment after the Scan button is pressed, you will be switched out of Photoshop and the Scanner software panel comes to the front, telling you that scanning is in progress and not to lift the lid. Hello??! Isn't that obvious? This is not a loud scanner, but you can *definitely* hear the mechanism moving and know when it is scanning v.s. when it has finished. I do not know a way around this, which means that I cannot edit in the background uninterrupted while new images are scanned and brought into Photoshop.Canon should supply an option to NOT bring the MP Navigator software to the front after it is initially opened. I'd rather have no interface displayed at all (since I have it set to send all "Photo" scans to Photoshop. But it is nevertheless sometimes useful to have the interface available. Why? The front panel of the 8800f actually has 7 scan buttons (!). 3 for different types of PDF plus 1 to complete a multi-page PDF document. So if you're sitting at your desk and realize that there are no more pages, you can just click the "complete PDF" button on your computer's software panel, then immediately e-mail it, without having to walk back over to the scanner first. (This happens more often than you'd think.)To e-mail a single scan, there is a button labeled "E-MAIL". It just places the scan in your outbox, if your e-mail program isn't set to send immediately. In that case, you'll subsequently need to open Outlook and click Send to get it to go out immediately.Photo scan quality is excellent. It will scan to a file, or directly to Photoshop. Whitespace around the image is nicely automatically eliminated.But there are sometimes issues with clipping a portion of the photograph when it's pushed up against the left side. I've had better luck with aligning the image on the right edge, but saw it happen once there, as well. Maybe the software sometimes gets a little aggressive with the auto-trimming. When it happens this can be very annoying, if you're scanning an entire page and can't move it around much on the bed of the scanner to get a clean scan. But it seems to happen only rarely, and everything else about this scanner works so flawlessly that I'm overlooking it for now.All scanners should work this well. But they don't.So clear some desk space and get ready for your most pleasant scanning experience in this price range to date.

OUT OF THE BOX: The complete machine is much smaller and lighter than my previous scanner, with the same scan field dimensions. It comes with a USB connection and a separate power "brick" between wall socket and scanner. Three scan guides are included; a combo of 2 side-by-side 35 mm film strips (for 5 frames each) with latches that flatten curved strips, a guide for 4 standard size slides and a 120mm film strip holder. These guides fit into a specific place on the scan surface, so that they line up under the lid-mounted light source, which is covered by a removable shield. The lid is quite light, but it needs opening to almost straight up for it stay open without support. The thin latches on the 35mm film strip guide are very flimsy, and I already snapped one when trying to load curved negative strips. Software with scanner drivers etc., an advanced image editing program, as well as versions of Adobe Photoshop Elements (5.0 for windows, 4.0 for mac) are included.SOFTWARE: I haven't tried all the included software yet, as I prefer to work in other programs for archiving and retouching images. Having said that, using one of the programs to drive the scanner (MP Navigator) I think that there are some unnecessary steps and windows between scanning and saving. Working from a mac, setup was easy and scanning using the scanner interface is very intuitive. Everything runs relatively smooth, but there are occasional software crashes, and I cannot queue a lot of images before the program's buffer is full (even with an excess of RAM). Automatic detection of the images within slide frames or negative strips is very accurate, but this can be switched off, as another reviewer noted, and you can select your own area of interest or a whole film-strip.SETTINGS: There are numerous choices to make before you scan, such as Unsharp Mask and Remove Dirt & Scratches, which has different levels to choose from, as do "Grain Correction" and "Backlight Correction". While I generally see a beneficial effect of the Unsharp Mask (again; I work at high dpi settings), I notice that turning the dirt and scratch removal on only makes a mess of the affected areas, while leaving some specs or smudges completely untouched. I tend to turn the choices for removal of dirt & scratches and grain correction completely off. I am running the scanner completely from the scanner software and am not using the panel of buttons on the scanner lid, but it appears that these can be user-configured. Hidden in the preferences is also a setting to enable 48/16 bit output, but I haven't played with that yet.RESOLUTION: As noted by other reviewers, at higher resolution settings scanning can take quite some time, but I actually like this when it gets to a point of 30 minutes (for example for 8 negatives at 3200 dpi), so that I can work on something else instead of tending to the scanner every few minutes. For a preview scan and scanning prints at lower dpi settings this scanner is reasonably fast.FILE FORMAT & COMPRESSION: When I was running my initial tests to figure out optimal settings (optimal between image resolution needed and memory demand desired) I ran into some unexpected findings. For instance, I see a dramatic improvement in retention of details when I save scanned images as JPEG format rather than in full size TIFF. The compression actually seems to greatly improve contrast and sharpness, while taking up a lot less space! There are 3 levels of JPEG quality; High, Standard and Low (with inverse amounts of compression), but so far I have not noticed any (!) difference in final details when I choose "standard" over "high" quality, and again; the files take up less space in standard setting. A clear difference may be seen at lower dpi settings.RESULTS: The proof of any scanner is in the final scanned image and judging by that standard this CanoScan performs really well. Scanned prints are easy, because their physical dimensions don't require a high dpi setting. For color or negative film, some colors come out perfect, while others need a little tweaking afterwards, but overall this scanner performs great. I have posted a few images of color slides scanned with the CanoScan 8800F where I compare certain scan or save settings.IN SHORT:Pros: High quality scanner with lots of professional options for a low price. Abundant choices in resolution and other settings. Produces amazingly detailed images from prints, negatives and slides.Cons: Mostly related to software (only tested on a mac); small buffer for scanned images, occasional software crashes, some needles clutter in amount of windows and pop-ups (some, but not all can be turned off). Flimsy latches for 35mm filmstrip guide.In spite of some software shortcomings the end results are fantastic for a scanner at this price, and I rate this scanner around four-and-a-half stars.This is a review of the Canon CanoScan 8800F.