Plustek OpticFilm 7400 Film / Slide Scanner

The Plustek OpticFilm 7400 is a dedicated scanner for negatives and slides. With the aid of the included SilverFast software, the scanner does a phenomenal job of easily scanning negatives and slides and making them look great--without a lot of editing intervention. It makes multiple passes when it scans, so it's not meant to be fast; and it will work only with standard 35mm negatives and slides. It's not a very versatile scanner, nor is it very fast (plus you have do one one slide or negative frame at a time) but is the right scanner for those with lots of old film to convert.

Though Plustek promotes the OpticFilm 7400 as being "the most ideal film scanner for most users including home users, photographers and small office / workshop users," in fact I think it's likely the best bet for that middle group--photographers with lots of slides and negatives they want to scan into high-quality digital images (particularly as slides and negatives are prone to dust, scratches, and color degradation). The scanner is quite dedicated to scanning only negatives and slides and while it does a great job at that, it doesn't have much to offer the typical home office or consumer.

But that's not to denigrate this scanner. If you do need to scan slides and negatives, you're much better off with this scanner than with a typical flatbed scanner that includes a separate holder for slides and negatives. Most of those (one example is the Epson Perfection V330 Photo Scanner) are good for scanning photos but their slide and negative holders are flimsy and do a poor job at holding these media. The Plustek's holders are heavier duty and in particular slides fit firmly inside and do not slip out easily, or at all.

That's important because rather than simply laying atop the flatbed, the holder in the Plustek gets fed into the scanner one slide (or negative frame) at a time. That of course means you're going to scan only one at a time and since the scanner makes multiple passes, it's a very time-consuming process (figure on close to a minute just for scanning time).

But that multiple-pass process is the reason that the scans look so good. That, along with the SilverFast software that's included with the scanner, which provides a host of useful scanning functions at a click. For example, you can quickly prescan a slide and then choose to modify it based on skin tones, darkness or contrast, gold tones, and so on. These modifications are instantly visible on the prescan. Other simple fixes allow brightness and color changes, while more sophisticated alterations (histograms and a densimoter, for example) allow users who already understand these tools (or who have slogged through the 450-page PDF manual that comes with SilverFast) to make other kinds of changes.

I found that the simple fixes made scans look excellent in most cases, better than the slides and negatives I have scanned in flatbed scanners, even when I scanned both at 300 dpi. Compared side by side, there's no question that the Plustek does a better job.

It may be more than most users need; but if you are a photographer and have a lot of time to do the work yourself, you'll be pleased with Plustek.

Disclosure: Review samples were provided by the manufacturer. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.