Q. I’ve been researching a scanner for some time now. I am looking for one that will do slides, negatives and photographs. There are so many available that reading reviews does not really help as each seems to give different information. The price of these seems to vary widely. Could you help identify what is important to look for in any scanner and even an economically priced specific make and model? J. J. via e-mail A. There are two basic types of scanners being made today: 1) Flat-bed scanners for reflective material; and 2) film scanners for film (positive & negative, color, black and white). There is "optical" resolution and there is "interpreted" resolution. Optical resolution is the important specification. Think of it as the "real" resolution. Interpreted resolution is something that is done with arithmetic in the scanner's software. It is not reliable and should be discounted when considering a scanner. Almost any flat-bed scanner can do a decent job of scanning reflective material. If you are going to take the scanned image and print something on an inkjet printer, you need 300 ppi in order to produce a picture. Almost all flat-bed scanners have optical resolutions of 1200–2400 ppi. Some manufacturers call the resolution "dpi" (dots per inch). This is technically incorrect. The correct terminology is "ppi" (pixels per inch). Dots per inch has to do with inkjet printers—not scanners. Better flat-bed scanners have optical resolutions of 4800 ppi and more. These higher resolution levels are used when scanning graphics or text containing a lot of fine lines that need to be captured without "jaggies." Some flat-bed scanners have attachments that allow them to also scan slides and film. Flat-bed scanners, however, are primarily designed to scan reflective material and do not have the dynamic density range necessary for optimum results with the much longer tone ranges found in film. Tone range is measured in something called "dynamic density," or less accurately "D" or "DMAX." Dynamic density of a good film scanner should be 4.0 or higher. A flat-bed scanner only needs to have a dynamic density range of 3.6 or so. Dynamic density is measured on a logarithmic scale. So, there is a TON of difference between 3.6 and 4.0. The optical resolution of a good film scanner should be 4000 ppi or greater. One good flat-bed scanner is the Epson Perfection 4870 for about $375; 4800x9600 ppi optical resolution; 3.8 dynamic density; USB/FireWire. And, yes, it has a film adapter, but with a 3.8 D rating, you're only going to get the mid-tones when you scan film. An example of a good film scanner is the Nikon Coolscan 5000ED for about $1000; 4000 ppi optical resolution; 4.8 dynamic density; USB 2.0. It is limited to 35mm and smaller film and slides (color or black and white; positive or negative). If you have larger film, then you'll want its big brother the Nikon 9000ED for about $2000; same specs as the 5000ED but the 9000ED handles film up to 6x9cm; mounted or un-mounted. Q. I used Photo Recall and spent considerable time putting subjects into an album library. I recently was going to show someone an album and when I brought up the subject, everything in the album had a big X where the photo should be. Why I am getting this weird X instead of the picture? R.T. via e-mail A. Most album applications create the "album" by recording the location of the picture file, not the actual file itself. So, it is likely that the program is presenting a red X because the real files are either no longer accessible to the album program (they've been moved, re-named, etc.) or the program has been moved (burned to a CD) and cannot locate the actual picture files. There is a great album program available for free from Google called Picasa2 (it’s actually much more than the album program). Go to www.google.com and download it. There are tons of Help files and tutorials on Google to get you started. Q. I'm sort of new at photography and I recently bought a Canon Digital Rebel 300D. I take a lot of pictures and I only have two CompactFlash cards (a 128MB & a 256MB) and I eat them up fairly quick. I saw an ad for a Seagate portable hard drive, and I wonder if I can directly download my cards from my camera to this device without the use of a laptop or home PC? If not, are there any other portable devices that meet this criteria? H.M. via e-mail A. I have not yet seen the Seagate product that you refer to, but I tend to shy away from "portable" hard drives because they are too fragile for my taste. There are just far too many things that can go wrong, causing you to lose your data files. I prefer recording the data files to a CD-ROM or DVD using a portable, battery-powered, disk burner. If the burner gets banged up due to rough handling, at least your data files are safely stored on a disk that can be read by almost any other disk drive. Try (www.card-media.co.uk/ digi+magic+dvd.htm) for a look at the Digi-Magic DM220 DVD device that records CDs and DVDs. It runs on batteries or an AC adapter, and can record directly without the need for a computer. It supports all memory cards, and although it is a British product, it is available from U.S.A. distributors. Another device is called "Kanguru Slim FC-RW" (www.kanguru.com/ fcrw_slim.html). It also runs on batteries or an AC adapter. Both products let you record from your memory card directly onto CD or DVD. Once your image files are recorded, they are pretty safe. If you're traveling just take some blank disks. Record two; mail one home and carry the other in your checked luggage. For local shooting I'd suggest a couple of high-capacity memory cards. n Q. I have two 1GB Lexar CompactFlash cards, an Olympus 5060, and an Olympus 8080. No matter what I seem to do, they both write file names with numbers in close proximity. I’ve tried to reset the numbers using the camera and also renaming the files with no luck. If I take pictures of the same subject and drag them into the same file folder, it asks me if I want to replace the existing file etc. R.P. via e-mail A. All digital cameras are factory-set to maintain a sequential numbering system. If you have tried without success to re-set the numbering sequence, then maybe there isn't a way for you to perform the re-set. Grab your local telephone book and make some calls to local camera repairmen. Maybe one of them knows how to re-set one of the cameras. However, you might try setting one camera to capture in JPEG and the other camera to capture in TIF or raw. Then, if you drag two files with the same number into the same folder, Windows may see them as different files, and not try to re-name them.