Canon UK Press Release - 01/09/03

Canon, leader in photographic and imaging technology, is pleased to announce the launch of the fastest flatbed scanner in its class, the film-capable 1200x2400 dpi, 48 bit colour depth CanoScan 3200F. The new model’s film adaptor unit (FAU) facilitates negative and transparency scanning. With a chic design, sleek lines and a stylish finish, the scanner has looks to match its unrivalled speed.

The CanoScan 3200F can scan an A4 page in just 17 seconds*, making it twice as fast as its predecessor, the CanoScan 3000F, and several times faster than its nearest competitor. Speed increases have been achieved with a new ASIC controller chip, which maximises data throughput to the USB 2.0 hi-speed connection. Fast Multi-Photo mode creates separate de-skewed files from a single pass scan of multiple photographs. Canon’s QARE Level 2 technology automatically removes dust and scratches from scans of reflective originals while also correcting colour fading and excessive graininess.

“Our research shows scanning is generally perceived as frustratingly slow,” explains Malcolm Hills, Head of Canon Consumer Imaging in the UK and Ireland. “With that in mind, our engineers set about redesigning every aspect of the CanoScan 3200F to produce a scanner that leaves other brands in its wake.”

The CanoScan 3200F will be available from October 2003 for around ?69 inc VAT.

* Based on 600dpi, USB 2.0 Hi-Speed connection, Pentium 4 1.7GHz, 256MB RAM, Windows XP

Focus on speed
A super fast USB 2.0 Hi-Speed connection transfers image data from scanner to computer up to four times the rate of standard USB connections, while a new ASIC controller chip takes       advantage of increased memory to process large data files in record time. The scanner engine is both faster and more powerful than in previous models, getting the scan head up to operating speed in less time. The scanner driver has also been re-written to extract maximum benefit from the CanoScan 3200F’s speed advantage.

Brilliant quality
Superb, crisp image quality is guaranteed with 1200x2400 dpi resolution and 48-bit colour depth ensures exceptionally accurate colour reproduction. In addition, the FAU allows scanning of un-mounted 35mm negatives and positives.

Stunning design
The CanoScan 3200F’s upgraded performance is reflected in new styling of the scanner’s outer body, incorporating sleek lines and a stylish finish. The gloss-finish lid has been given a textured surround to prevent finger marking.

Goodbye to manual retouching
Hours of manual retouching will be saved with the introduction of Canon’s QARE level 2 software, which restores damaged or faded photographs to their original brilliance by removing dust and scratches. Reconstruction of colour corrects the effects of aging by intelligently resaturating faded colours in old photographs. A grain correction function reduces grain effect resulting from the use of fast (high ASA) film.

Making things easy
Four ‘EZ’ buttons can be individually configured to perform commonly used functions. These can include scanning straight to a PDF file, scanning direct to a printer and scanning automatically to a ready-to-go email attachment. EZ button functions can be customised with the CanoScan toolbox utility.

Fast Multi-Photo
Canon’s improved Multi-Photo mode allows for the scanning of more than one photograph with be spread out on the platen glass with little regard for alignment or arrangement and Multi-Photo will automatically create a separate file for each photo. Automatic de-skewing avoids the time consuming process of carefully lining up originals.

Z-lid design for scanning from thick texts
Canon recognises not everything to be scanned will exist in single sheet form. The CanoScan 3200F’s Z-lid accommodates very thick articles and assures great quality scans from books, magazines and manuals by applying equal pressure across the entire document.

Powerful software
The CanoScan 3200F comes with a host of powerful applications including:

Ulead DVD Slide Theatre - creates DVD playable slide shows and writes these to CD-R.  Ideal for converting photo or transparency sets into television viewable slide shows

ArcSoft PhotoStudio 5.5 - image-editing program allowing tasks such as colour adjustment, labelling and album storage and retrieval functions.

OmniPage SE 2.0 - powerful Optical Character Recognition application allows scanned text to be converted into recognisable text characters/data.

Website: CanoScan