Canon punts fast, film-friendly scanner

Retouches pics automatically too

Canon has introduced its latest film scanner, promising the rig will zip through 35mm slides or grab them at very high resolution.

The CanoScan 9000F can scan slides at up to 9600 x 9600dpi in 48-bit colour. Canon didn't say how quickly - or not - such a scan will take, but if you're willing to sacrifice resolution, dropping to 1200dpi will see a 35mm slide grabbed in 18 seconds, it said.

An A4, 300dpi scan can be taken in seven seconds.

The 9000F will, at the touch of a button, scan to an image file, email or a PDF, and has enough on-board smarts to do optical character recognition on text, and clean up scratches and other blemishes off old pictures if you wish.

The CanoScan 9000F will go on sale in June for around £229. ®