So you've got a digital camera, and your photos go right into your computer. That doesn't mean you have no use for a scanner. Before you relegate scanners to the digital dustbin of outdated technology, consider that photo from the family Thanksgiving football game, circa 1978--the one with those outrageously bad hairstyles. What good are memories like that if you can't use them against your kin? With a scanner, this and more are possible.

SCANNER BASICS

Convinced? If you don't have a scanner yet, or yours is a space-hogging, low-res dinosaur, you'll want to check out these nine flatbed models. Prices range from $79.99 for the low-resolution HP Scanjet 3670 and Visioneer OneTouch 7300 USB to $199.99 for the high-style HP Scanjet 4670 See-Thru Vertical Scanner. Most of the units also scan transparent material such as slides and negatives. To do this they need a secondary light source and a way to hold the film in place. Some scanners, including Epson's $199 Perfection 3170 Photo, build the light fight into the lid and ship with a separate film carrier. The Perfection 3170 even accepts medium format film.

All the scanners in this roundup accept a maximum document size of 8.5xl 1.7 inches, sufficient for most home uses. Resolutions vary widely, however, ranging from 1,200xl ,200 dots per inch (dpi) to 3,200x6,400dpi. These two numbers refer to the horizontal (optical) resolution, or the number of samples the sensors on the scan head can take, and the vertical (hardware) resolution, which refers to the number of steps the scan head normally makes as it moves down the image. The more important number is the horizontal resolution, the smaller of the two. higher-quality images and a higher price, but this is not always the case. The $149.99 Visioneer OneTouch 9320 USB has a resolution of 3.200x6,400dpi, but its scan quality was only mediocre.

That's because another factor also affects quality: the scan element. Scanners employ either charge-coupled devices (CCDs), an older technology, or the newer contact-image-sensor (CIS) technology. CCD scanners use optical components such as mirrors and lenses to scan an image, resulting in better quality. CIS scanners use a...