I had been using a Umax Astra 1220P that I bought about 8 years ago... It is slow and has no driver support for Windows XP (though I figured out how to make it work using a serial driver instead of a parallel driver). I thought the dark chips came out darker than they should...

So I got a new Lexmark X5470 All-in-One. I was anxious to test out the scan feature.

I picked out bright chips (since most people have problems with bright colors) and also some dark chips (since the Umax had difficulty with those chips). I also looked for chips with some contrast.

All I did to the images was reduce them to 600 px wide... Otherwise, they would have been way to huge to display here. The Astra had to be scanned at 1200 dpi -- at 300, it looks like an Andy Warhol painting) and the Lexmark was scanned at 300 dpi. Here's the side-by-side results:

8-year old Umax Astra 1220P at 1200 dpi

Brand new Lexmark X5470 at 300 dpi:

I am bummed that the bright colors faded so much, but all in all the speed was amazing on the new Lexmark compared to the old Umax. And the dark colors look much better on the Lexmark, IMHO. Also, notice how the day glo colors "halo" on the old scanner is gone on the new one... Short of keeping a "bright chips" scanner and a "dark chips" scanner, there is no clear winner on the images. The colors are much better represented on the Umax, but I assume its the same setting that makes the dark chips come out so dark. I'll tinker with the settings on the Lexmark. If I can get the bright colors to be properly represented, I'll be extremely happy with my new scanner (I just hope it doesn't darken up the dark chips).

Anyone else worked with this scanner and got the colors right? I wonder if I could have two default settings...one for dark chips and one for bright chips... That would make things much easier...