The Plustek OpticFilm 8100 ($349) is Plustek's least expensive dedicated film and slide scanner. It's also the only one without hardware-based dust and scratch removal, offering a less robust, but still welcome, software-only version instead. Unfortunately, the lack of this feature is somewhat inconsistent with the professional-level, hard-to-master scan utility the 8100( at Amazon) comes with. Those two factors together keep the scanner from being a terrific fit either for casual photographers, who want easy scanning, or professionals and serious amateurs, who insist on the best scans possible.

If you're willing to put in the effort to learn the software, as well as the effort to manually adjust the settings for every scan, the 8100 can deliver reasonably high-quality results with most originals. As you might expect, its scan quality is significantly better than you'll get with less expensive models, like the VuPoint Solutions Digital Film and Slide Converter FC-C520-VPD, which is aimed at casual photographers who don't insist on particularly high-quality scans.

The 8100 isn't a match for more expensive options, like the Epson Perfection V700 Photo($1,084.20 at Amazon), which not only offers higher scan quality overall, but does a better job in particular with fully automated scans. That said, the 8100's 7,200 pixel-per-inch (ppi) optical resolution promises to retain more detail in scans than you can get with either the Epson V700 or the less expensive Editors' Choice Epson Perfection V550 Photo Scanner($349.00 at Amazon), which both offer 6,400 ppi.

Basics

Unlike the Epson models, which are both flatbeds that can also scan photographic prints and documents—and, in the case of the Epson V700, film and slide transparencies at up to 8 by 10 inches—the 8100 is limited to 35mm size and to transparencies only. One advantage of this design is that the scanner isn't very big. It measures just 4.7 by 4.7 by 10.7 inches (HWD), and it comes with a padded case, so you can store it away or carry it to a different location.

Plustek provides both its own QuickScan utility and LaserSoft Imaging SilverFast SE Plus 8.0 with the scanner. SilverFast, which is available for a large selection of scanners, has much the same status among scan utilities as Photoshop has for photo editing. It's one of the most capable choices available, but it's hard to learn how to use to its best advantage.

Setup and Scanning

Setting up the 8100 is easy: Install the software and plug in the supplied USB cable and power cord. To scan, you first mount a strip of film with up to six frames in the film carrier or mount one to four slides in the slide carrier. The carrier goes into a slot on the scanner's side, and clicks into place for each frame or slide, making it easy to line up correctly. After each scan, you manually reposition the carrier for the next image, and scan again.

The mechanics of scanning are also easy. Hit the QuickScan button on the front of the scanner, and the software will scan and save to a file. Hit the IntelliScan button, and SilverFast will open on your PC, so you can, in principle at least, optionally choose the Prescan button, and then the Scan button.

Unfortunately, both software choices lack the scanner equivalent of a camera's point-and-shoot feature, meaning an option that will prescan, analyze the image, and then automatically adjust settings to reliably give you a high-quality scan. If you don't first set everything properly, the odds are very good that the scan will be low quality or completely unusable. Beyond that, for good scan quality, your best bet is to ignore QuickScan entirely, and depend on SilverFast.

SilverFast offers what it calls a Workflow Pilot to help guide new users through the scan process. However, depending on which Workflow you choose, the program may leave out any number of potential steps that are essential to getting good a scan. Even if you're already familiar with scanning, plan on investing a significant amount of time in learning how to use the program. Also plan on investing time in tweaking settings for each individual scan.

Speed and Scan Quality

Odds are you'll spend more time adjusting settings than actually scanning, but scan speed still matters, if only because you have to wait for each scan to finish before you can go on to the next. In my tests using a Windows Vista system, the 8100 consistently prescanned a single slide or frame of film in just under 20 seconds. The actual scans took between 37 seconds for a scan at 1,800 ppi, and 4 minutes 5 seconds for scanning at 7,200 ppi.

You can also improve the quality for many scans by turning on the SilverFast Multi-Exposure feature, which takes two scans at different exposure times and then integrates the information from both to increase the scanner's effective dynamic range (i.e., its ability to distinguish detail based on shading, particularly in dark areas of the image). This takes significant extra time, however. I timed a single scan at 7,200 ppi with Multi-Exposure at 13:48.

Scan quality was near excellent in my tests, with the scanner handling skin tones well, resolving fine detail appropriately for the claimed resolution, and maintaining detail based on shading in both dark and light areas of the image. The scan of one negative, for example, showed both the white-on-white detail in a bridal gown and the two levels of black in a tuxedo. However, getting that level of quality took far more time experimenting with setting choices than I would have liked.

If you have no interest in learning a complex scan utility like SilverFast, take a look at the Editors' Choice Epson V550, which will give you reasonably good scans with little to no work, but still let you tweak the settings with Epson's scan software. If you want the option of choosing between fully automated scanning, better scans with tweaking the settings, or still better scans with SilverFast, consider the Epson V700, which comes with both Epson's easy-to-use scan utility and with SilverFast, and will also let you scan transparencies at any size up to 8 by 10 inches.

If you need to scan only 35mm film and slides, and you're the kind of perfectionist who wants manual control to adjust the settings just so on every scan, the Plustek OpticFilm 8100 will give you that capability for a lower price than the Epson V700. Depending on your budget, that can potentially make it the better fit for your needs.

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