HOWTEK DEBUTS PHOTO PRINT SCANNER FOR INTERNET/CD-ROM USE.

Howtek, Inc. (Nasdaq: HOWT) has debuted its Fotofunnel high productivity Photographic Print Scanner. The Fotofunnel scanner accepts up to 80 color or black and white photographs at a time, converting the photos to electronic form at user selectable resolutions from 300 to 600 dots per inch. Using application software from a variety of vendors, images captured by the Howtek scanner can be transmitted to the Internet for viewing or sharing, or stored in electronic form on Compact Disk or diskette. The Fotofunnel scanner accepts prints of up to 5 x 7 inches in size, capturing photos at the rate of 3-4 per minute. The Fotofunnel scanner is being offered at retail prices below $5,000.

Engineered specifically for high-productivity and commercially reliable scanning of photo prints, the Fotofunnel uses a high-performance CCD image sensor and a short in-line print feed design that reduces moving parts, eliminates mirrors and glass, and uses soft silicone feed rollers to avoid damage to valuable original photos. Howtek expects to make Fotofunnel scanners available through a variety of sales channels.

Scott Parr, Howtek's president and CEO, explained that the Fotofunnel scanner is designed to address the needs of two distinct markets, "An estimated 18 billion photographic images are developed each year. Film processors today are compelled to offer digital services to their customers. Recent publicity regarding delivery of processed film by internet and electronic mail has made this requirement even more urgent. For many one-hour film developers and lower volume processing labs, however, there has been no cost-effective way to convert incoming rolls of film into percentage of customers. Howtek's Fotofunnel scanner allows a small film processor to develop photo prints as usual, and then drop the stack of completed prints into the Fotofunnel input tray for immediate scanning. Because the scanner is compact, fast enough to allow processing and scanning within the one-hour time requirement of many processors, and durable enough to stand up to the tough requirements of professional processors, we believe it can provide a cost effective 'electronic photo' solution to a market of 10,000 to 20,000 small one-hour processing labs, worldwide."

Parr continued, "The Fotofunnel Scanner also represents an opportunity for retail and service businesses that seek to offer a photo print scanning solution to home and commercial photographers. Currently, there are an estimated 220 billion photographs, in the United States alone, residing in albums, wallets and shoeboxes. Fotofunnel offers a way for mini-lab owners and other retailers to easily convert their customers' shoebox of prints to CDs, Diskettes or to host images to the Internet. Today, mini-lab owners and other retailers are looking for new products and services to build customer traffic and incremental business. Fotofunnel, as a 'load and leave' scanner, allows a retailer to offer new services without a corresponding increase in direct labor. We believe that this 'shoebox' market extends beyond the traditional film and photo industry, to include other businesses which seek to build customer traffic by providing inexpensive batch scanning of existing pictures to consumers and to more specialized customers."

Howtek designs, engineers, and manufactures digital image scanners, film digitizers and related software for applications in the medical imaging, graphic arts, and photographic markets.

For more information, call 603-882-5200, ext. 204.