Flatbed scanners are great for scanning pictures, sheet fed scanners are great for scanning documents and film scanners are great for scanning negatives. Plustek is hoping the OpticFilm 7200 is great for scanning negatives and slides.
Features
- 48-bit scanning
- 7200 dpi
- USB High Speed 2.0 connection
- Carrying bag
- Illuminated Slide Viewer
Setup
Getting the Plustek OpticFilm 7200 set up the first time may take a little while. The scanner comes with 5 pieces of software and each one serves its own purpose. LaserSoft SilverFast SE 6 is the main scanning program. You will use this the most. NewSoft Presto! PageManager is photo management software. It also supports OCR and full-text indexing. NewSoft Presto! ImageFolio is the image editing software. You will use this software for touchups and other editing tasks. NewSoft Presto! Mr. Photo is a greeting card program. You can use this software to create postcards, calendars, greeting cards and other things. Last, but not least, is QuickScan utility. This makes it so you can use the quickscan button on the front of the scanner.
The only software that is actually required is LaserSoft SilverFast SE 6, QuickScan utility and the scanner drivers. You can save about 10 minutes of setup time by not installing all the software.
Design
The scanners design is very simple and easy to use. There are three buttons on the front of the scanner. The lowest one is the power button. Obviously this turns the scanner on and off. Next up is the quickscan button. This activates the quickscan utility which will scan your negative or slide according to the settings you defined in the software. One more up is the inteliScan button. This activates the LaserSoft SilverFast SE 6 software. With this activated, you can configure the scan to meet the specific needs of your film or slide. One of the nice features of the LaserSoft SilverFast SE 6 software is when you scan negatives you can specify the type of film you used and it will adjust to the best scan settings for you.
On top of the scanner is a small square. Conveniently, it is just the right size for a single slide. When the scanner is turned on this square lights up and can be used as a viewer for slides and negatives. It actually uses the light from the scanning blub to light up so during the scanning process the light will move and the viewer cannot be used.
The back of the scanner is plain except for the power and usb plugs.
The scanner also comes with a vey handy carying case which has enough room for the scanner and all the accessories.
film7200_4_big.jpg
The OpticFilm 7200 comes with two trays. One for the negatives and one for the slides. The slide tray will hold 4 slides and the negative tray will hold 6 frames. I personally have found that negatives are usually cut in pieces with 4 frames each. So unless you cut them again you will probably never get 6 frames in the tray. The negative tray also does not have any tabs for holding the negatives in place, so it is possible for them to slide around or get misaligned. You will need to make sure the frames are in the right spot before scanning by holding the tray up to the light and sliding them around until they are set. Be very careful when adjusting your negatives because they are very easy to scratch.
The trays slide into the body of the scanner from the side. You can enter from either side. As you slide the trays into the scanner you will notices that there are notches that will hold the tray in certian spots. This will help you align the tray so you don’t cut the picture off. You can only scan one slide or frame at a time, so if you have a lot to do it could take a while.
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I have a couple of questions. First off, the negative you scanned was scratched, does the scanner come with any software that helps with this? Also, what does the image look like full size, it’s hard to tell the quality when it’s so small. Secondly do you have experience with other film scanners, I’m curious how this one compares to others in this price range, especially the Dimage Dual IV.
Thanks,
John
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This particular scanner did not come with any scratch removal abilities. There is a new version of the scanner out now called the OpticFilm 7200i. It includes a new feature called Infrared Smart Removal of Defect. Here is a quote from their website “The newly introduced iSRD (Infrared Smart Removal of Defect) feature provides productive defect removing solutions, eliminates dust and scratch automatically.”
About the image sizes, feel free to click on any of the images for a larger view.
I don’t have any experience with any other dedicated slide scanners.
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Thanks for the info, I’ll look into the new version. Obviously they can be cleaned up in Photoshop but if the you can do it when scanning it’s so much easier.
By full size I mean something along the lines of 2-3 times as large as the ones posted. I guess I’m just used to large files, probably not practical for the web.Again thanks, I’ll look inot things and of course will post my comments about whatever version of film scanner I get.
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I was just reading a review of another scanner that said the Silverfast program contains both a dust remover and scratch fixer. If you still have it installed could you check on that for me- seems silly to sell software with a scanner that doesn’t st least remove dust since it’s almost impossible to keep off negaitives. Many thanks- the doubled price tag of the 7200i makes it less appealing, especialy if this one does have the features i’d expect.
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I don’t have the software anymore, but I checked the plustek website and looked at the software that comes with the scanner. It lists SilverFast 6 SE and has this item “SRD Dust & Scratch Removal.” It does indeed look like it can remove dust and scratches with software.
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