AGFA Scanners. Opinions please

I Think the Duoscan and others are made by microtec. Look at these too.

Oh. Dont like the sound of this 36 to 24 bit conversion. Whats it
all about? What's posteristation? Is it purely a case of waiting for
a software update or is it a permanent feature/fault of the scanner?

Hello

The Agfa 1236 is an excellent scanner. Very well built, very quiet,
quick and has good software. The only problem is that I got
posterisation in the output. Flesh tones had a banding which became very
apparent when any sharpening was used. This was confirmwd by Agfa
support in London with their machine, also using Windows 95. Agfa
support in Belgium never replied to any of my E-mails. I sent them some
examples. I took the scanner back.

It is I think a software problem, in the internal conversion from 36 bit
to 24 bit output. The software has to convert 4096 levels to 256 levels.
It does not do this very well. Most of the other scanners that I have
used do this conversion much better. If this scanner could do a full 36
bit output into Photoshop then I would have kept it. Photoshop
conversion is very good. Both Umax 1220s (badly built and noisy, with
curious vertical bands on output) and Microtek X6(noisy, reasonable well
built, slow but good scans), give full 36 bit into Photoshop. I have
kept the Microtek. The software is alright.
Its Scansuite is very good.

Wait until Agfa bring out an update to Fotolook 3.

I don't know if the Apple version has the same problems.

Mike Engles

Just bought the Agaf snapscan EZ. I am not familiar with using a scanner
but this set up easy and the software is pretty intuitive to use. Bought
it because of price and reviews i read. Check here for some info on it
Agfa Snapscan EZ review

No actual experience as yet but having been looking into buying one
for some months I am favouring a Snapscan 1236S. I am primarily
influence by brand name (and their reputation in commercial scanners &
printing for several years), competitive price, scanning speed (Agfa
are one of the few to publish typical/maximum scan times and always do
well in the tests), availability of automatic document feeders, and
slightly better than average construction.

Put off others by very flimsy construction in case of all but IBM, HP
and Canon. The IBM colour flatbed scanner is hard to find and even
harder to find a test report on it, though it offers legal size
scanning area. HP always get bad press and seem clumsy. Canon are
compact but take shortcuts on image quality.

So, Agfa it is for me, if you can take any comfort in that.

I have the Snapscan EZ and I bought my daughter the Snapscan 1212P/PC.
They do beautiful scans, and come with very easy to use software. I bought
both from McGlen Micro (#). Their prices on these items seemed
to be lower than other vendors I found on #. The 1212P
is about 10 dollars more than the EZ, which seems to be out of stock.

Hope this helps,

Bob Leifer

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