Hey, gang. I'm not quite ready to pull the trigger yet, but I do want to get a new scanner (I don't even remember what happened to my previous one--it's been a number of years). What's really motivating me is that I want better scans of album artwork for a lot of my music than what I can find online. There will be other uses, of course, but I don't anticipate needing to scan film or negatives. I'm looking at this Canon:

Canon CanoScan 8800F Color Film/Negative/Photo Scanner (2168B002)

Even this may be overkill. I just don't want to skimp and get something I'm unsatisfied with. I like the idea of LED illumination so warm-up time isn't an issue. The customer reviews are pretty positive and plentiful.

Do you think I'm on the right track? Should I look to save money with another model, or do you think there's another one out there that will fit my needs but has a better suite of software with it?

I appreciate any help I can get.

Charles, I can't help too specifically on any particular scanner though I can tell you that Canon and Epson both have very good reputations for consumer units. I just bought a PERFECTION V500 PHOTO SCANNER because I was able to get it for $120... and it was worth it to get as a backup. My employee has been happy with it the few times she's used it...but I can't say it's better or worse than the Canon.

I know, not much help...

I don't know much about scanners but I can tell you that there has been an Epson here at work that started out scanning photo IDs for a Digital Web Cert system and it's still working after 8 years. We are no longer in the Digital Web Cert business for the Gov. anymore so it mostly scans old photographs for office pranks now.

The Epson V500 was actually the other one I was looking at. Thanks for the nearly-useful second-hand review.

I've got the V350. It seems to work pretty well, although the software is nothing to write home about.

That seemed to be the complaint against the V500, that the software wasn't the best. I'm sure it would be enough for my uses, but still, if I can get something better, then why not, right?

Yeah, but you're not going to find much that is better. Generally, the free software with scanners is pretty crummy.