The supplied Easy Scan Utility software supports both Windows (98, 98SE, 2000 Professional, Me, and XP) and Macintosh (Mac OS versions 8.6 through OS X) users. On the CD you will find standalone applications, a Photoshop acquire plug-in for the Mac, and TWAIN drivers for the PC.

We'll only be covering the Windows software here, sorry no Macs in my house.

As we stated on page one, the Easy Scan Utility software has two interfaces, a quick and simple interface and an advanced interface. We'll start with the simple interface.

The "Simple" Interface

This is a "show and tell" type of interface as you can see from the next five frames. It tells you to load one of the film holders into the scanner and illustrates it for you as well.

Next you are asked what type of film (color negative, B&W negative, color slide or B&W slide) you are scanning.

The scanner now automatically generates an index of four slides or six negatives and then presents you with the thumbnails. You can select and rotate the portrait mode thumbnails for easier viewing. You now select ONE image for high resolution scanning.

Before scanning you can make image adjustments that are shown onscreen in real time. You can also enable the Pixel Polish and Auto Dust Brush enhancements.

The final step is to chose your desired output usage which will determine the scanning resolution and output scaling. If you select the "VGA" option for example, it will do the scan and then scale it down to 640x480 and save it with a fair amount of JPEG compression. In comparison the "save at highest resolution" setting will produce the maximum size image scanned at the full 2820dpi optical resolution and save it as an uncompressed image for later editing or printing.

The Advanced Interface

The advanced interface is for those times when you want to do batch scanning or just take complete control of all aspects of the scanning process. The main window looks like most graphic editing programs.

The first thing you need to select is the scanning resolution and the film type.

These buttons give you access to the scanner's main functions. From left to right they are: Index prescan, Prescan, Scan, Eject (film carrier), Auto Dust Brush, Pixel Polish and Preferences.

These buttons are available in the Index window and let you rotate a portrait thumbnail 90° CW or CCW, flip it vertically or horizontally, fit to window, reverse order of thumbnails, save an index scan as a file, save an index file, display a saved index or select an image-correction job.

These buttons are available in the Prescan window and let you rotate a portrait image 90° CW or CCW, flip it vertically or horizontally, fit to window, magnify, move, focus on the selected point, manual focus, auto crop the image or crop to the active selection.

After you have generated your index and selected one to prescan you can now use the Exposure Control options to adjust the RGB channels.