CNET has a roundup of 5 of the latest photo scanners, including the new high-end Canon CanoScan 9950F flatbed scanner (pictured).

“When it comes to judging specs, be sure to read the box carefully and cynically. Some manufacturers quote the interpolated resolution rather than the optical resolution. The former conjures up pixels where none exist, by mathematically approximating the pixel value based on its neighbors, while the latter figure represents the actual number of photo-sensitive sites on the sensor. Optical density can also be a tricky spec. It’s a measurement of the range of tonal values a scanner can capture, on a scale of 0 to 4.0; the closer to 4.0, the more detail you’ll see in the highlights and shadows. But there’s no standard defining the scanner settings with which the measurements are taken, so we can take the manufacturer’s quote as only a rough approximation.”

Website: CNET - Photo Scanner Roundup