Labs

Epson's Perfection V200 is the second cheapest scanner here that can scan 35mm negatives and 35mm slides, as well as regular documents. Despite its low price it comes with a transparency frame that can hold six 35mm negatives or four 35mm slides, and has a high optical resolution of 3,200x9,600dpi.

The interface is well designed and has been optimised for scanning film. Previews of each frame appear as separate thumbnails, so you can scan each picture from a strip separately.

In Professional mode, the interface provides a great deal of control over your final image. It includes a full range of resolutions, tone and image correction options, including software-based dust removal to correct scans

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of dirty or damaged negatives. Auto and Home modes provide a limited set of options for those who simply want to make scans quickly and easily.

Colours were among the most accurate here, with particularly good reproduction of pale and bright tones, although deep shadows were less well defined. We were also pleased with the sharp reproduction of fine detail in our high-resolution photo scans and five-point text in our 300dpi font size test. Our negative scans were bright and beautifully coloured, although the maximum optical resolution of 3,200dpi may be a limitation if you want to make particularly big enlargements.

The bundled software includes ArcSoft PhotoImpression for basic image editing and management, and the ABBYY FineReader 6 OCR package. This made a couple of errors that the IRIS OCR software included with HP's scanners had avoided, but we were generally pleased with the quality of text recognition.

The Perfection V200 Photo produced the best results we've seen from a scanner that costs under £100. Scans were sharp, accurate and fast. The maximum resolution of 3,200dpi is plenty for photo scanning, and the brightness and vivid colouring of our transparency scans was unmatched by any other scanner here. This is a great scanner at an excellent price.