In the interest of starting some marginally-related-to-wallpaper conversation, I was wondering what experience you ladies and gentlemen have had with scanners. Mine has decided to go ahead and die, (producing random stripes of color), and I'm interested in what types of equipment you have experience with.

I'm mostly interested in the software/drivers various companies supply. The Umax that died had pretty nice acquisition software, such that you could easily switch to advanced mode and control scan options such as resolution and color depth. Contrast that with an HP that I've used at work, which is infuriating in it's simplicity. I despise the software taking control from me and not telling me what it's doing. I can never tell if it's taking the scan at 600dpi like I want, or at the 150 it defaults to, interpolating, and saying it's 600.

So I guess, after all that, the question is, anyone know of a good scanner whose software allows you to actually control it and use it's ability to scan at a decent resolution? I'm not talking software bundle, I much prefer Photoshop, but the Twain interface to save to file or import to ps. Or maybe someone knows of a really good generic interface?
Thanks for any opinions.

That's actually a pretty good question. I've just alway used the deskscan software that came with HP computers. I never really remember having he problem of too few options. I'd say that most devices like this come with two software versions: one for new users and one for pwer users. That is they should at least.

For years I used a Visioneer 6100b it was a pretty good scanner plus it was cheap.But it finally gave it up .This time around I went with a Hpscanjet 3500c its pretty good but its slow.I wouldn't get one with less than 1200 x 1200 dpi resolution and 48 bit color.You can scan from within Photoshop with both of these scanners,and you can set the Hp scanner up so when you push the scan button it opens Photoshop.

I curently use an Agfa Snapsacan 1212. Its old enough and unfortunately it always uses parallel port. But, its a very good scanner with 2 soft (Agfa fotosnap 3.0 for beginners and Agfa fotolook 3.0 for the others). Agfa Fotolook 3.0 gives me all necessary orders

Maybe I just never found the "power user" version of the HP software at work. There I was only scanning photos from books for use by an art history class, so after a certain point any more resolution/color depth was just picking up more of the dots from printing. But it definitely annoyed me that it never really let you know what resolution it had just taken the scan at. I agree HP makes a good scanner, I just always felt the interface was too user-friendly. I suppose if I used it enough, I could get used to the quirks, and work around them. : )

I dont know how older Hp scanners where but this one came with a pretty decent interface.As far as not knowing the scan resolution you can set it before you scan to what ever you want.Granted you cant tweak every pixel of the image that you are scanning but I think it does a decent job.Beside there are several people that use the scanner and Ive found that "power user"+"multi user"="disaster". : )

Bleh...Just use a digital camera to take pictures.

Oh man, don't start that arguement... Digital vs. Film is soooo much more involved than I want to get into today :) (by the way, I use both now)

theffx, what if he has an awesome picture(in film) and he wants to scan it onto the computer?