Rated 
Good for Photo, Bad for Books
Fast startup (no delay), Fast scanning (it IS 7 sec at 300 dpi), great quality. Adobe Photoshop elements is a great Plus
Bad ergonomics - the buttons are on the lid, so cannot scan keeping lid open. Canon software is not great.
Posted Sep 24, 2007 - For scanning photos and negatives, this is a great scanner - it has great quality, very fast scans, and almost no startup time, as it uses white LED. The included Photoshop Element alone can account for half its price. It is the latest version 5.0 for Windows and 4.0 for Mac. So if you are scanning photo from inside photoshop, you will be at ease. However, I bought this to scan books due to its high speed. I was planning to use the multi button pdf scanning feature. After buying it, I found the buttons are on the lid, and while scanning with the lid open, they are impossible to reach, unlike canon's other LiDE scanner models, where they are on the lower unit. I had to resort to clicking the mouse button with one hand, while holding the thick book over the scanner with other, the exact thing I wanted to avoid and went for this scanner with exclusive multi-page scanning button. The Canon Software for scanning, MP Navigator Ex, is good but lacks some basic features that people expect. For one, there is no contrast (or brightness as they label) control on the scanning function, although it is present in the print and copy functions. Hence if you want to make a scan lighter or darker you cannot use the one-click scans, and have to resort to manual scans. I found the default levels too low for most documents and for copy, I had to set it 25% or 50% darker to make the copy readable. However, no such option is available in pdf or scan functions and they end up to be too light. Overall, if you are planning to scan a lot of photo and negative, and like to use Photoshop Elements and have not bought it yet, this looks like a great investment. However if you are like me and planning to scan books faster, this is not the one to select, although it does scan fast!
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