Although not top of the range, the CanoScan CS5600F is a well-specified flatbed scanner with an attractive price tag and could appeal to everyday consumers who need to scan both reflective originals (such as documents and prints) and images on film. Capable of 4800 x 9600 dpi (dots/inch) resolution and up to 48-bit colour depth it has a built-in film adaptor that accepts up to six frames on 35mm filmstrip or four mounted 35mm slides at a time.
Larger and heavier than Canon's LiDE scanners, the CanoScan range includes better facilities for film scanning, with the ability to scan several frames from a film strip at a time. Its design and build quality are much as you'd expect for its price tag. Essentially a rectangular box with a lift-up lid it's not particularly compact. You need a desk depth of about half a metre to accommodate it comfortably and it's no lightweight at 4.3 kilograms.
The CanoScan CS5600F. (Source: Canon.)
Most of the body is made from mid-grey plastic. The lid, which has a black plastic insert that holds the control panel, slopes downwards on all four sides, while the body steps in to reduce the footprint by a couple of centimetres all round. USB and AC-in ports are located on the rear of the body, with an on/off switch on the right hand side.
The lid is balanced to stay up once you've raised it above about 45 degrees. Seven ‘one-touch' are located in a line near the front of the lid. They're divided into two groups. The four buttons on the left side allow users to create PDF files directly. Individual buttons are provided for colour and B&W originals while the remaining pair include a Custom button which allows individual adjustment and a Finish button that ends the operation and saves the scans.
The other three buttons link with MP Navigator EX, the supplied scanning application (see Software below). Pressing the Copy button scans the document on the platen at a default size of A4 and prints it directly on a connected Canon printer. The Scan button scans the document into an editing application. The Email button scans the document at an appropriate size and resolution for sending and attaches the scan to a new email.
Raise the lid and the 223 x 304 mm platen is revealed. Beneath the lid - and covering the platen is a removable protective sheet that covers the upper light source. This sheet is held in place by plastic clips and must be removed before you can scan film. (Unfortunately, the on-screen manual neglects to tell you so.)
Close to the right side hinge is a sliding lock that locks the mechanism for transport. Moving it to the right unlocks the scanner. If the scanner is relocated, the lock should be slid to the left to prevent damage to the mechanism - which can be touchy.
Documents, prints and other items that are scanned by reflected light are placed face down on the platen. Images on film, which are scanned by transmitted light, must be loaded into the supplied holder, which accepts up to six frames in a 35mm film strip of four mounted 35mm slides.
The film strip holder is simple to load and insert in the scanner. It has a calibration window at the top end and a hole that slips over a pin at the top edge of the platen. Another tab on the lower edge of the platen accepts the other end of the holder.
The CanoScan 5600F comes with a mains power cable (figure-eight connector type) and USB 2.0 Hi-Speed cable, neither of which is specific to the product. The bundled accessories list also included a film guide for scanning 120 roll film but it wasn't included in the box.
Scanning Technology
Like most scanners of its type, the CanoScan 5600F uses a white LED light source for both reflection and transmission scans. These lights take only a second or so to warm up and deliver high levels of brightness. Scanning speeds are, consequently, relatively fast and power consumption is low.
Canon's Film Automatic Retouching and Enhancement (FARE) technology is provided at Level 3, which is the highest level (as far as we can discern). It uses both infrared scanning and software to remove dust and scratch marks and correct fading and granularity. Backlight correction is also included to even out the dark and light tones in dark subjects photographed against bright backgrounds.
Software
The software bundled with the CanoScan 5600F includes Canon's MP Navigator EX, the ScanGear driver and CanoScan Setup Utility plus ArcSoft PhotoStudio 5.5 for Windows and Macintosh, a very basic image editor. It took approximately four minutes to load the supplied software. MP Navigator EX provides a basic scanning interface. You simply place the document(s) on the platen, select the type of original and click on the Scan button to start the scan. Everything else is handled automatically.
The main interface for MP Navigator EX.
A few adjustment controls are included in MP Navigator EX with automatic and manual settings provided in the Edit/Convert sub-menu. Auto options include a global ‘Auto Photo Fix' tab plus Face Sharpener and Digital Face Smoothing tabs. The same three tabs appear in the manual mode but each is adjustable with sliders.
Although the CS6500F has facilities for scanning printed documents - and you can select Text (OCR) or OCR through its One-click interface - this scanner isn't set up for any kind of document scanning beyond straight copying. Although the Copy mode produced a good facsimile of a printed page, no OCR (optical character recognition) software is provided to convert scans into printed text.
Scanning completed in MP Navigator EX.
Once the scan is completed it will be displayed on the screen and you have the option of scanning another document or exiting the interface. If you click on the Exit button, you're taken to a browser interface from which you can select a destination for the scan.
Saving scans in MP Navigator EX.
The more sophisticated ScanGear TWAIN driver gives you the option of previewing scans and provides a wider range of settings. You can access it from MP Navigator EX by checking the Use scanner driver box - or via an image editor, such as Photoshop. This is the best interface to use whenever you want to be able to adjust scanning parameters.
ScanGear provides three operating modes; Basic, Advanced and Auto Scan. With the Basic mode you simply tell the driver what type of original you're scanning, how the scan will be used and the desired output size. This interface provides corrections for fading, backlighting and gutter shadows (when scanning book pages) plus a colour ring-around for correcting colour casts.
The Basic interface with the colour ring-around displayed.
The Advanced interface lets you adjust resolution and output size and tweak image parameters like colour balance, brightness and contrast and tone curves. Colour channels are individually adjustable. Histograms are provided, along with pre-set tone curves for correcting over- and under-exposure, high contrast and negative/positive reversal. You can also make custom adjustments.
The Advanced interface with some of the adjustment panes open.
The Advanced interface in film scanning mode.
The Auto Scan mode is for scanning multiple originals in a single scan. No adjustments are provided. You can place up to 10 separate documents on the platen at a time but there must be at least a centimetre between them if you want the software to recognise them as separate documents. Closer and they'll be scanned as a single document.
The Auto Scan mode interface with images at correct working distances.
The Auto Scan mode with originals too close together.
All three modes can be used for scanning both print and film originals.
Performance
The review unit was ready to use within a second or two of pressing the on switch. In most scanning modes it took between 10 and 15 seconds to scan individual originals at sizes up to A4, regardless of whether the originals were prints, documents or film. Multiple print scans took a little longer but all were completed within 20 seconds.
Film scanning was significantly slower, with each frame taking between three and four minutes at 2400 dpi. If you select a higher resolution, the software will warn you about the capacity limitations of your computer. This warning can be ignored but it's probably wise to keep higher resolutions for one-at-a time scans. It took between 21 and 28 seconds to preview a strip of four or six 35mm negative or slide film frames, regardless of whether they were colour or monochrome.
A strip of six B&W negatives was scanned at 2400 dpi in a little over 11 minutes, while it took a similar time to scan a strip of four 35mm colour negatives. Single mounted slides took just under four minutes to scan, while a strip of six unmounted 35mm transparencies was scanned in 16 minutes and two seconds.
At 2400 dpi, B&W print scans from snapshot-sized prints averaged around 350KB in size, while A4 prints ranged between 1.5GB and 2GB, depending on the amount of detail they contained. Scans of colour prints were roughly 50% larger. Scans of B&W 35mm negatives were around 1GB in size, while 35mm colour negatives and transparencies ranged from 1.5GB to 3.5GB.
The quality of the resulting scans was variable and strongly influenced by the quality and dynamic range of the original image. We noticed a general trend of the scanner to increase contrast slightly with all types of originals. Saturation was boosted in scans of colour transparencies; less so with colour negatives and prints, where it remained close to the originals.
A scan of a B&W print with the full tonal range reproduced.
A scan of a colour print with the full tonal range reproduced.
These adjustments could exacerbate existing problems in the images we scanned. For example, a 35mm transparency with slight vignetting showed very obvious vignetting after scanning, as shown below.
The FARE dust removal technology seemed only to be able to remove very tiny blemishes and many of our scans contained dust marks after scanning, as shown in the illustration below. However, there was little evidence of residual scratching on scans from film originals.
An enlargement from a scan of a B&W negative showing dust that wasn't detected by the scanning software.
The original full-sized scan.
The adjustments provided in the Advanced mode in ScanGear provided some useful facilities for correcting images whose colour balance had a little changed over time. But gross colour shifts required more adjustment than the scanner driver provided.
A scan from a 16-year old transparency that had suffered from colour shifts (left), showing the maximum degree of correction available in the ScanGear driver (right).
As a copier, the CS5600F delivered faithful copies of both photos and printed documents and provided enough adjustments to compensate for copies of documents on coloured paper and documents combining images and text. However, without OCR software, produced unusable document scans, as shown in the illustration below.
In summary, the CS5600F is an affordable, easy-to-operate, general-purpose scanner for home offices. It will suit families and micro-businesses that do a fair bit of copying and basic scanning. However, it's not designed for high-volume situations and doesn't produce optimal scans from slide films, particularly those with colour shifts due to age. And it doesn't remove dust and fibres effectively.
Buy this scanner if:
- You need a low-priced, general-purpose scanner for copying documents and prints.
- You want a scanner the kids can use.
- You have high-quality original print images to scan.
Don't buy this scanner if:
- You have lots of film images to scan. (It will take ages with this scanner.)
- You have old slides to scan.
- You don't have time to thoroughly clean films and slides before scanning.