First impressions of Creo EverSmart Supreme flatbed scanner with product comparisons on Fujifilm, Agfa, and Heidelberg prepress scanners

Nicholas Hellmuth relates his first hand experience with the Creo EverSmart Supreme flatbed scanner.

Notice: Creo is part of Kodak since 2005, so the scanners are now Kodak scanners.

FLAAR is dedicated to a long-range review of Creo flatbed scanners and comparison with Heidelberg, Hasselblad Imacon, Umax, Microtek. This project began at the FLAAR-Germany office. There we worked with the EverSmart Supreme for several months. This was circa 2000-2001. Then in 2004 we got another Creo EverSmart Supreme, for our photo archive in the US and have been evaluating this pre-press flatbed scanner ever since.

The glass on the Creo EverSmart Supreme is easy to clean. This was a demo unit so it arrived from the factory with tape marks, finger prints, and general grime (sort of to be expected). The scanner, however, is extremely well designed for cleaning the glass top and bottom (inside and out). The manual is well written and the scanner is easy to handle (lift off the lid, expose the glass, and clean away). Putting back the lid is equally easy (getting the glass, clean, however, is a challenge).

In 2002 at Print '01 and then IPEX 2002 tradeshows we saw several new Fuji scanners. These offer professional pre-press quality. Unfortunately our test drive of a Fuji Lanovia was too short; this is a problem when we don't have one in-house. With the Creo Supreme, we had in our own FLAAR office so could learn all its capabilities.

Main problem with Fuji scanners is that few dealers are available. Creo scanners are much easier to find. Furthermore several Creo dealers know fine art giclée printing and wide format inkjet printing of photo-realistic museum quality prints. To get this quality it definitely helps to have a scanner the quality of the Creo Supreme. This scanner allowed us to scan a mere 35mm slide and get a 36 x 42 inch print on a wide format giclée printer that was so awesome people wanted to steal the prints.

FLAAR has opened a new evaluation center at Bowling Green State University of Ohio. We have been evaluating the Creo scanners here. If you are itching to find out about the various Creo scanners, you can always contact imaging@parrotcolor.com. They have years of experience and direct contact with Creo itself. If you wish to see the scanners in action, in some Kodak booths at some trade shows the Creo scanners are presented. Kodak bought Creo during 2005. Creo had previously purchased Scitex several years before. So today the Sitex, CreoScitex, and Creo scanners are all part of Kodak.

If you are in any country, including outside the USA, and wish further information on these flatbed scanners direct from Creo at Kodak, the e-mail is scanner@creo.com.

We also have two Heidelberg scanners in our other office in Guatemala. The Heidelberg software is great and the staff really like the quality of the output. Although these scanners are no longer made, this probably means you can get them at a discount. But there are no spare parts, no service tech support, and no updates to the software. It is safer to stick with a brand that continues, such as Creo.


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