Canon UK Press Release 21/09/04

Aspheric lens gives new flagship CanoScan 9950F the edge

Canon, leader in photographic and imaging technology, is pleased to announce the launch of the new flagship to its CanoScan scanner range: the 4800 x 9600 dpi 48 bit colour depth CanoScan 9950F. The world’s first flat-bed scanner to offer 30-frame capacity for 35mm filmstrip, the 9950F also incorporates an aspheric element lens - Canon’s own ‘Super-Toric’ lens - for unsurpassed levels of clarity, contrast and image quality.

Canon?s new range-leader features FARE Level 3 - the ultimate infra-red film correction and enhancement system for precise, automatic dust and scratch removal, colour resaturation, plus grain and backlight correction. QARE Level 3 offers a similar correction and auto-retouching functionality for photo prints. A fast scan engine, moving backlight FAU, extremely efficient light capture system and USB 2.0 Hi?Speed / IEEE1394 FireWire connection combine to deliver super-quick 3.6 second previews and exceptionally fast scan times. The slim contours, aluminium hairline finish and robust build of the 9950F are consistent with its position at the top of the CanoScan range.

“New sensor, lamp and lens technologies introduced with the release of the 9950F are indicative of Canon?s commitment to producing superior solutions through Research & Development in scanning technology,” said Head of Canon Consumer Imaging in the UK and Ireland, Malcolm Hills. “With its capacity to scan a full roll of 35mm film in one operation, Canon expects this scanner to be the new first choice for serious professionals.”

The Canoscan 9950F will be available from November 2004 for £339 RRP inc.VAT / EUROS 489 RRP inc. VAT

Super-Toric Lens for super quality?
As the world?s only flatbed scanner manufacturer with a heritage in precision optics and lens manufacture, Canon is uniquely placed to design, develop and manufacture its own scanner lenses. The 9950F?s Super-Toric lens features an aspheric element to counter the effects of spherical aberrations. The performance of traditional spherical lenses is reduced at the lens periphery, which has until now limited FAU size to the central portion of the scanner platen. By comparison, the Super Toric lens delivers superb clarity, high contrast, tone-rich images from edge to edge.

The 9950F?s CCD is Canon?s first 4800 dpi resolution sensor to be incorporated in a flatbed scanner, producing resolution surpassing many dedicated film scanners. Improvements to internal engineering significantly reduce electrical noise to further enhance scan quality.

?and high speed
A series of innovations allows for fast preview times of just 3.6 seconds. The Super-Toric lens allows for a shorter light path and larger aperture, which means more light reaches the scanner?s CCD sensor than is otherwise possible with conventional lens systems. This not only improves image quality, but allows shorter exposure times and therefore fast scan speeds. In a new moving backlight FAU, the light source in the FAU (housed in the scanner lid) moves in tandem with the optical carriage in the main unit. By delivering more light to the sensor at any given time, this design both improves image quality and allows the optical carriage to be moved faster than would otherwise be possible, which in turn leads to faster scan speeds. A new infrared cut filter keeps maximum warm-up time at room temperature to a super quick 20 seconds. USB 2.0 Hi-Speed and IEEE 1394 FireWire interfaces ensure the fast transfer of large, hi-resolution image files to both PC and Mac systems.

Built for film
The 9950F is the first ever flatbed scanner to come equipped with a 30-frame capacity film-guide for 35mm film. Also included is a new holder for scanning up to 12 mounted slides and a 120 roll film guide with a double slot for loading frames of various sizes up to 6 x 22cm. Furthermore a 4 x 5 holder has a shutter for a frame up to 6 x 9cm; ideal for optimal illumination of single frames. Unlike the protective sheet found in many scanners to cover the FAU when not in use, the 9950F features a plastic moulded click-in/click-out cover. It can be removed or re-attached with one hand for extremely fast switching between reflective and transparent originals.

The Fast Multi-Photo mode saves time by creating individual files from a single pass scan of multiple photos. Multi-Photo automatically identifies, crops and de-skews individual images, so users no longer have to spend time carefully aligning and arranging their originals on the glass.

Infrared detection and correction
The 9950F features FARE Level 3: the ultimate in automatic film retouching technology to restore film images to their original pristine condition. Original transparencies are scanned with a second infra-red light pass, which accurately and precisely locates imperfections such as dust and scratches on the film surface. Advanced image processing builds up a map of these image imperfections, which is then used by intelligent software to correct the scanned image. The results are compelling and save hours of manual retouching. FARE Level 3 also reverses the effects of film aging by resaturating faded colours in old photographs, and a grain correction function limits the grain effect in fast (high ASA) film. A Backlight Correction function adjusts the gamma only of the discrete areas of an image that are heavily backlit, thereby increasing brightness where necessary without washing out the entire image.

QARE Level 3 offers very similar functionality as FARE Level 3, but for reflective scans of printed photos where the negative may not be readily available.

EZ buttons
Four EZ buttons are configured to allow ?one-touch? operation of Copy, Scan, Scan to PDF and E-mail functions. Scan to PDF allows the creation of searchable PDF files. This automatically converts text within scanned documents into characters via an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) process and imbeds them into the document. Where a PDF is created, newly scanned pages can be inserted or added to the existing file, and the order of pages within the PDF file can be altered.

Quality software
For increased functionality and additional value, the 9950F is bundled with high quality OCR, imaging and document management software.
CanoScan Toolbox 4.9 ? A user-friendly interface, which sits on the desktop as a menu bar of frequently used functions, each of which is allocated an easily identifiable button. Functions include Copy, Print, OCR, Mail, Scan to PDF and custom scans:

- Support for Adobe RGB colour space for accurate and precise colour reproduction
- Easy Colour Matching Print uses ICC colour profiles to ensure optimal colour accuracy when copying colour images direct from scanner to printer
- Embedding Exif data: When the 9950F is used to create a JPEG file, it is possible to have Exif data embedded in the image file. Exif data includes various information about the scan date and name of the scanner, and is useful for managing JPEG images with Exif-compliant software such as ArcSoft PhotoStudio and Adobe PhotoShop Elements. 
ScanGear CS 10.3 - includes a range of functions and features to help users better manage scanned images. These include:
- Index Print: allows printing to a single page of thumbnail images of up to 30 x 35mm frames
- Multiple Cropping: allows use of a crop tool on pre-scan images in order to define only those areas which are to be scanned and converted into discrete files. Up to 30 individual frames can be cropped from a 35mm film scan, or 10 individual crops from a scanned page
- Default Image Cropping: automatically sets the crop area of a range of film sizes to a pre-determined size, to avoid errors in auto-detect cropping which can occur with very dark images (such as astronomy or concert performance images). Can be set to small (95% of transparency), standard (100%) or large (105%)
- Floating Palettes: Advanced Mode features floating palettes (shown either individually or simultaneously) which allow fine adjustment of ?Histogram?, ?Brightness & Contrast?, ?Tone Curve? and ?Gamma?. A fifth ?Final Review? palette is available to display the cumulative effects of various adjustments
- Favourite Settings: Up to 30 favourite scanner setting preferences can be stored for later use (10 sets each for reflective scans, film with or without thumbnail preview)

Adobe PhotoShop Elements 2.0 ? Award winning software based on the professional Adobe PhotoShop. Extremely powerful yet easy-to-use image editing software for print, e-mail, and the Web.
ScanSoft OmniPage SE ? powerful, market-leading Optical Character Recognition application that scans text for conversion into recognisable text characters/data for editing. Saves hours of transcription and increases productivity by quickly turning stacks of paper documents into word processing and spreadsheet files.
ArcSoft PhotoStudioTM 5.5 (4.3 for Mac) ? image-editing program featuring automatic colour and tone enhancement, automatic red eye removal, cloning, animated 3D text and over 40 special effects.

Compatibility
For Windows machines, the 9950F is compatible with Windows XP Professional, XP Home Edition, XP Media Center Edition 2004, Windows 2000 Professional, Windows Me and Windows 98. For Macs the scanner is compatible with Mac OS X v 10.1.3 or later.