What I've been trying to do....because I am making soooooooo many scans, it reduce the number of steps to as few as possible.

I've been steadily working on a high quality chip scan cd for a couple of years now, and I'm now up to 7,200. It's not unusual for me to sit down everyday and try to do 20-25 scans. The old software with my HP was not the friendliest for cropping.

If just finished tweaking the epson stick scan software so that the scanning priorities are saved. Many different ones can be saved. I saved one for: 1 chip-316x316-(cropped). As I do the preview, the scan box (316x316) displays perfectly around the chip. I can zoom in if I like, to see close detail. I'm hoping to find the way to have it got to the zoomed spot automatically, but I haven't figured that one out yet. At that point I can name the chip image and scan and save it.

In all of the new systems, the scanner actually does a quick preview, and then after you've made any changes or adjustments, a quick scan before it is saved. The quick preview and quick scan, even though it appears to be two separate scannings, really is about as fast as one of the regular scans on the old software. So really doesn't seem to be a time issue.

Again, for me, I'm trying to figure out not only how to make the best quality scans with fairly low file sizes but in as little time as possible.

After I've mastered the Epson Scan software, I'll play around with Elements and Twain to see if I can refine the process even more. But from what I;m seeing, this is really much better then my old software.