WHAT'S HOT: Crisp color scans that accurately represent the originals help lift the Canon CanoScan 5000F USB above many competing models. In our print and on-screen tests, this scanner reproduced color, contrast, brightness, and saturation--including proper skin tones--exceptionally well, and produced excellent shadow and highlight details. (The noticeable sharpness of the 5000F's images can be credited to its Unsharp Mask filter, which is on by default during scanning. Other scanners also offer this type of filter--which sharpens an image without affecting the brightness, contrast, or color balance--but Canon is one of the few manufacturers that enable it as a default setting for most of their scanners.)

In addition to scanning reflective materials such as photos, the 5000F can process up to three frames from a 35mm strip or two mounted 35mm slides at a time with its included transparency adapter. Sturdy holders for filmstrips and slides are included. Test images made from 35mm slides showed accurate color rendition and sharp details.

Like most new scanners these days, the 5000F has an optical resolution of 2400 dpi, which is particularly useful for making enlargements from small images (such as 35mm slides) without losing quality. For capturing as much color data as possible, the 5000F can scan--and save--48-bit color images. Earlier CanoScan models downsampled 48-bit scans to 24 bits, but Canon has since enhanced its driver, ScanGear CS, to include an option that lets you turn on 48-bit color output. The option also allows you to capture 16-bit gray-scale images, but only from transparencies.

WHAT'S NOT: Tested using its USB 2.0 interface (which is backward compatible with USB 1.1 connections), the 5000F wasn't as fast as some other USB 2.0 units. For example, the 5000F took nearly twice as long (16 seconds) to scan a 4-by-5-inch color print at 100 dpi as the Epson Perfection 1660 Photo took to complete the same test (9 seconds). And even though it beat the 1660 Photo by a few seconds in a higher-resolution test (a 2-by-2-inch color print at 1200 dpi), the 5000F performed slower overall compared with the 1660 Photo, as well as with HP's Scanjet 5500c and 5550c.

WHAT ELSE: Four buttons on the front panel let you scan, copy (with help from a printer), or send images directly to a file or to an e-mail application. You can also customize some of the buttons' functions (to change the linked applications, for example) using Canon's utility, CanoScan Toolbox. Other software bundled with the 5000F includes ArcSoft PhotoStudio 5, a capable image editor that supports 48-bit images; two different document managers, ArcSoft PhotoBase 2.1 and NewSoft Presto PageManager 6; and ScanSoft OmniPage SE, an optical character recognition app for turning scanned documents into editable text.

The ScanGear CS driver offers different interfaces for beginners and veteran users. The Simple Mode provides standard settings for the most common tasks (such as photo, magazine, newspaper, and document scanning) and also includes a handy Multi-Photo mode that automatically scans, crops, and processes up to ten images in one operation. The Advanced Mode offers access to more-sophisticated tools, including color adjustment, exposure correction, and dust and scratch reduction. A diverting but totally nonessential new feature in ScanGear is an option that lets you select a sound file (MIDI, .mp3, .wav, and other formats) as an alert when scanning is completed, or as music played during the scan.

UPSHOT: The CanoScan 5000F is a great scanner for users who demand high-quality images and are willing to pay a bit more to get them.