Having a flatbed scanner is not only chic, it's now a necessity. Now that you have a means of producing output that borders on photorealistic quality, you need a means to input your photos and documents. You can learn more about these products in this issue's Trends Hardware section. This results in less data loss and a better image that has more detail in hue, highlights, and shadow. Although images may be scanned at 30 bits, the scanner software determines which 24 bits out of 30 bits have the best shadows and highlights.
Optical resolution is just as hyped and misunderstood as bit depth.
Although manufacturers claim that higher resolutions can be achieved with software interpolation, such interpolation tends to boost the file size rather than the image quality. Also, most users will be best served by scanning at a resolution that matches their specific needs. For example, desktop printers rarely require more than 300 dpi of data, and images for the Web need to be only 72 dpi. The advantage to using CIS is that scanners can be built smaller, with fewer moving parts. Therefore, CIS-based scanners are less expensive.