Most scanners from Kodak are aimed at offices that need to scan documents, but a few? including the Kodak P460 Personal Photo Scanner ($109.99 direct)?are for consumer-level casual photographers who need to scan photos. The P460, Kodak's low-end entry in this second category, offers enough to qualify as a pleasant surprise. It scans both prints and 35mm film, and it does a much better job of it than you might expect for the price. It also chooses most of the settingsfor you automatically, which more serious photographers might find frustrating, but casual photographers will appreciate for how easy it makes scanning.
Aside from its color, the P460 (which is manufactured by Pandigital and available on the Pandigital Web site) is nearly identical to the Pandigital Personal Photo & Negative Scanner/Converter PanScn05 ($99.99, 4 stars). The PanScn05 is white. The P460 is black. There are some other small differences, but the key word is small.
Only the P460, for example, comes with Kodak EasyShare software, which lets you manage your photos as well as turn them into photo mugs, photo books, and other products you can buy from the Kodak Gallery Web site. However, you can download the program from Kodak's Web site for free, so that's not much of an extra. More significant is that both scanners come with a memory card to save scans to, with the Kodak scanner offering 2GB compared with 1GB for the PanScn05.
The most interesting difference, however, is that although both scanners can scan unmounted slides as well as 35mm negatives, only the PanScn05 touts that ability. The P460's Web site description, spec sheet, and user guide talk only about scanning negatives.
The issue for Kodak is presumably that the slides will already be in cardboard mounts in most cases, so before you can scan them you have to remove the cardboard. This is enough of a chore that Kodak apparently decided it made more sense to ignore the possibility. Although you actually can scan unmounted slides?which I know because I tried it?you won't hear that from Kodak.
Setup and ScanningThe P460 measures just 1.7 by 6.2 by 2.7 inches (HWD). It has a 4-inch-wide manual feed slot in the front, a straight-through path with the exit in the back, and a memory card slot along with power and USB connectors on the back. Setup consists of plugging in the supplied card and connecting the power cable. You can then turn the scanner on and put a photo in the slot or snap in what Kodak calls the negative adaptor, and put a strip of film in the guide.
When you push the print or film far enough into the slot, the scanner will detect it, start feeding it, and scan the photo to a JPG file. With film, it will automatically detect whether its positive or negative and will scan each frame on a strip to a separate file.
Aside from the manual feed, the entire scan process is automatic. In fact, the only setting Kodak gives you control over is the resolution, which you can switch between 300 pixels per inch (ppi) and 600 ppi. Even that one control is hardly needed, since anything over 300 ppi is overkill for prints unless you plan to enlarge them.
Film always scans at the scanner's 1200 ppi maximum optical resolution, which is appropriate for enlarging the images to print at 4- by 6-inches, but a little low for anything much larger than that. (Note that if you want higher resolution for film you can find it in this price range in flatbed scanners like the Editors' Choice Epson Perfection V300 Photo ($99.99 direct, 4 stars).)
Once you've scanned an image to the memory card, you can move the file to your computer by moving the card or by plugging in the supplied USB cable, letting the computer recognize the card as a drive, and then copying the files. You also have the option of installing a utility from the card, which will let you set the scanner to scan directly to your hard drive when you're connected to the computer.
Speed and Scan Quality
Keep in mind that timing the speed of manual feed scanners is a little misleading, because it doesn't include the time you spend on the manual feed. With prints, you should take the time to protect the originals by putting each one in the plastic sleeve that comes with the scanner, and with both prints and film you need to take the time to carefully feed the original so it goes in straight.
Timing only from that point on, the P460 took 10 seconds for a 4 by 6 print at 300 ppi and 17 seconds for scanning one frame of film, which is easily fast enough so you're not likely to feel like you're waiting for the scanner. As a point of comparison, the Plustek SmartPhoto P60 ($90 street, 2.5 stars) took 21 seconds to scan a 4 by 6 at 300 ppi. The PanScn05 was tied with the P460.
Scan quality matters a lot more than the speed, and the good news is that the quality for both prints and film is easily good enough for casual photographers who aren't interested in cropping in on the photos and enlarging them, or printing the originals at larger than 5 by 7 inches.
Other Issues
The only complaint I have about the P460 is that the negative adapter is a separate piece that's small enough to make it easy to misplace. That's particularly troublesome considering that the best reason to get the scanner is to have an easy way to scan negatives. However, Pandigital says that if you lose the adaptor, you can get a new one for free, without a charge for shipping and handling, simply by calling and asking for it.
Ultimately, the Kodak P460 is a great choice for casual photographers. More precisely, if you have lots of film to scan, aren't concerned with printing at large size, and want a quick and easy way to scan film without needing a sophisticated understanding of scan settings, the Kodak P460 Personal Photo Scanner (or its near twin PanScn05) may be exactly the scanner you need.
COMPARISON TABLE
Compare the Kodak P460 Personal Photo Scanner with several other scanners side by side.
More scanner reviews:
??? Pandigital Personal Photo & Negative Scanner/Converter PanScn05
??? Kodak P461 Personal Photo Scanner
??? Kodak P460 Personal Photo Scanner
??? Brother DS-600
??? Canon imageFormula DR-3010C
?? more
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