As with most scanners, the LiDE 120's driver offers an Advanced mode that gives you lots of control, but might be overwhelming for less knowledgeable users, and a Basic mode with fewer choices.
If you're not happy with the results, however, you can adjust scan settings in the Twain driver to tweak the image quality. Scan Quality The AutoScan feature handled most scans well enough in my tests that it can easily be all you need for most scans. You can also change settings for all four scan buttons, and their equivalent commands in the scan utility, to modify how each choice works. I tried AutoScan with both photos and text pages, and it picked the right format each time, recognizing the text as appropriate.
In addition, the setup program installs Twain and WIA drivers, which will let you scan from most Windows software that includes a scan command.īy default, the buttons on the front panel let you copy, email, scan to PDF, or run the AutoScan feature, which analyzes the image and saves the file in either JPG image format or searchable PDF format. Scanning Scanning is easy, with the choice of using one of four buttons on the front panel or giving the command at the computer using Canon's scan utility. However, if you have an app from, say, Evernote, running on your computer, you can set the scan utility to save files to the directory that the cloud app is monitoring, so the app can send the scan to the cloud for you. Unlike many recent scanners, the LiDE 120 doesn't come with any connectors to online systems for direct scanning to the cloud. You can even scan to editable text format. In addition, the scan utility includes built-in optical character recognition (OCR), so you can scan directly to searchable PDF format, as well as to image PDF format. There's no real photo editor, for example, but Canon's My Image Garden works as a photo album and includes some photo enhancement commands. The software is different, but has similar capabilities and limitations. Most of the LiDE 120's hardware-based features, including its 2,400 pixel-per-inch (ppi) resolution, are unchanged from the LiDE 110.
It's best described as a refresh of, rather than a significant upgrade from, the Canon CanoScan LiDE 110 Color Image Scanner. The LiDE 120 measures 1.6 by 9.9 by 14.6 inches (HWD) and weighs 3.4 pounds. More important, it scans well enough to make it our Editors' Choice for low-cost photo scanners. The LiDE 120 ($199.00 at Amazon) is aimed at those who need to scan photographic prints, don't need to scan film or slides, and don't want to pay extra for a film-scan feature they don't need. The Canon CanoScan LiDE 120 Color Image Scanner ($69.99) is the latest incarnation of Canon's lowest-cost flatbed photo scanner.