Epson Perfection V600 Photo Color Scanner (B11B198011)
- Create extraordinary enlargements from film
- Remove the appearance of dust and scratches from fi lm
- Remove the appearance of tears and creases from photos
- Restore faded color photos with one touch
- Scan slides, negatives and medium-format panoramic fi lm
EPSON PERFECTIONV600 PHOTO COLOR SCANNER
List Price: $ 199.99
Price: $ 169.99
Epson Perfection V30 Color Scanner
- 4800 x 9600 dpi optical resolution
- Beautiful enlargements up to 13 x 19
- Advanced Digital Dust Correction
- One-touch photo restoration
- compatible with Windows and Macintosh; Hi-Speed USB 2.0 connection
Scan photos and 3D objects with amazing clarity and detail. The value priced Epson Perfection V30 makes it easier than ever with 4800 dpi optical resolution and a host of automatic features. With the scanner remarkable resolution, you can easily create extraordinary images. And it offers easy setup plus one touch scanning. So, whether you choose to archive important documents or your favorite photos, you can be up and running in no time. Bring those faded color photos back to life effortlessly with the Perfection V30. This versatile performer even includes a high-rise lid for scanning books and other 3D objects. With an innovative LED light source, the Perfection V30 provides fast scans with no warmup time.
List Price: $ 79.99
Price: $ 79.99
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February 2nd, 2012 7:29 pm
Epson V600 works for me!,
I did quite a bit of research before buying this unit, so I had a pretty good idea what I was getting into. Of course, there were some concerns about software, etc., but I went in with an open mind.
First, this unit does a superb job of scanning both slides and film, so that part worked out very well. At first, I scanned at 4800 dpi, but after a bit, realized that 3600 dpi was more than enough resolution for most pictures. People have said that the carrier is flimsy, but it wasn’t a problem. Tip — when scanning a lot of slides, tape the left and bottom sides of the carrier to the scanner chassis (not the glass). You can quickly drop slides into the slots and later remove them, without the carrier shifting.
A lot of people were put off by the Epson software, and suggested Vuescan. I demo’d Vuescan, and wasn’t impressed. Why spend a bunch of time modifying the image before the scan, when it is so much easier to make adjustments later in Photoshop 7 (supplied with the scanner)? All I really want to do when scanning is to get a decent version of the image, minimizing clipping, etc., without investing a lot of time. I also like the way Epson auto-cropped the pictures for me.
After some frustration, I hit on method for using the Epson software effectively:
1) Don’t use “Unsharp mask” when scanning. Use Photoshop’s version later.
2) Select all the pictures and apply “Auto Exposure”. This fixes the colors, but does a lot of high and low clipping.
3) The images will now look much more like real pictures, but need a bit of work.
4) Select a pic and zoom it. Select “Histogram Adjustment”. See the top graph? Note that the left and right sliders are too far in toward the middle, so information is being clipped.
5) Before making any changes to the sliders, look at the middle graph. It will usually have a bit of a dip (tending toward the bottom right). Remember what it looks like.
6) Now, go to the top graph, and move the top and bottom sliders out, until they are just outside the black area. You have now eliminated the clipping, but your now picture looks terrible. Note that the curve in the middle graph has dipped way to the bottom-right.
7) Move the center slider to the left, while looking at the curve in the middle graph. Remember how it used to look? Try to make the curve look like it used to, with the same little dip toward the bottom-right.
That’s it! Go to the next image and do the same thing. Once you get the hang of it, each picture takes about 5 seconds.
The nice thing about this technique is that you don’t even have to look at the picture while you’re doing it. Guard against a tendency to make a dark picture too bright by overdoing the correction. Remember, you’re better off fixing the image in Photoshop. Meanwhile, you’ve got an picture that’s viewable now, and that still has all the information you’ll need to make it a great picture later.
Once I figured this out, and unleashed the V600 to do its thing, the rest is history….
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|February 2nd, 2012 8:16 pm
Great scanners, great software,
Don’t get too worked up by the negative reviews calling the Epson Scan software “junk.” It isn’t. I read enough of the other reviews to convince me to download a copy of Vuescan and try it out right away. True, Vuescan has a lot of film profiles that should be more accurate than the limited number Epson uses, but the trouble with Vuescan and this V600 scanner–in my experience–is that the frames for batch scanning a group of negatives were not accurate, and it was more than a little confusing, if not impossible, to change the frames around. This feature of Vuescan is very confusing your first couple of times around, and I lost patience and shut the program down.
Then, thinking I’d better try the Epson software before considering returning the scanner, I opened Epson Scan. I went straight to “Professional” mode, checked out all the parameters they allow adjustment to, selected what I wanted, and clicked “Preview.” This is scanning two strips of negatives, mind you. When the preview came up, it had all twelve frames boxed in their own boxes, all basically color-corrected and ready for action. You select a check-box to pick which frames you want to scan, and click on each separate frame to diddle with it–like rotate it to the proper orientation, or change the exposure, whatever. Then just hit “Scan” and walk away. When it finishes you have all your selected scans in your “My Pictures” folder or wherever you want them, named whatever you want with “001″, “002″ and so-on appended to the name. It is easy as pie, and the quality is on par with any scanner I’ve used so far. Speed? For a 2400 dpi neg scan much less than a minute per scan.
Now some caveats. I’m not running Digital ICE, not doing any kind of sharpening, nothing. All I want is a raw scan; all the fiddling you want to do is better done afterwards in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, it does a much better job. If your negatives need all kinds of cleaning, or if they’re all scratched up and require a lot of correcting in the scan, you screwed up. Take care of your negs and slides, keep them clean, and you won’t have problems scanning them. You can clean them with a quick wipe with a lint-free cloth with a little rubber cement thinner on it–just don’t use anything water-based on negs and slides.
Secondly, just for grins I loaded a magazine page into the scanner and tried out the OCR software, ABBYY. They claim that it can scan and convert printed text into type. If you’ve had any experience with OCR software, you probably take that claim with a large grain of salt, like I did. But one quick scan–greyscale, 400 dpi–and the page was up on the screen. Pull it into Microsoft Word and it was 100 percent accurate, every word spelled correctly, even the closest font was selected for the text. An incredible job, in my opinion.
What’s my qualifications? I’ve been working with images my whole professional life. 40 years of photography or more, working with digital images since they first came out. I’ve owned a dozen different flatbed scanners and a couple of film scanners. You might be able to get better results from a more expensive scanner, but for the money this Epson V600 is tough to beat. Highly recommended. And give the included software a chance, you’ll probably like it just fine.
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|February 2nd, 2012 8:27 pm
Excellent Film Scanner on a Budget,
Pros:
Easy to use
Great results with film, 6×7, 645, and 135 (35mm)
Cons:
Software is a bit clunky
Digital ICE can do bizarre things
Largest Improvements Over V500:
Can now scan four 645 or three 6×7 negatives at a time (spec is 6x22cm).
Bottom Line:
Great deal for a flatbed scanner that is designed primarily for film and graphic arts use. I don’t think I would upgrade from the V500 unless you scan a lot of medium format film, and even then it might be worth checking to see if the new medium format insert would work in the V500 (I don’t know if it would or not). The software is the same as the V500.
One of the large bottlenecks of the V500 is that it will only scan two 645 negatives at a time. Since I usually cut in strips of 3, this is a problem. It means I had to scan each strip twice, once to get two of the images, and a second time to get the third. This means I had to 10 scans to get through a roll of 15 images. The V600 allows me to do this in 5 scans instead of 10. This is a nice time savings.
Sometimes the Digital ICE produces some bizarre artifacts, like halos around sharp edges and in shadows. It also at least doubles or triples the scan time. The somewhat random nature of the results and slow scan times makes me avoid Digital ICE entirely. The dust reduction does help, but do plan on spending 5 or 10 minutes in Lightroom removing dust spots from critical images. Dusting your negatives and keeping them clean will help a lot. Keep an antistatic brush and cotton gloves handy when scanning negatives.
This is a great scanner for film shooters, and will quickly pay for itself over just 10 or 20 rolls of film. Expect to get results comparable to a decent DSLR camera, if I had to wager a guess a 135 (35mm) negative might be comparable to a 6 MP SLR where the medium format might be more like a 12 MP equivalent, but these comparisons are dangerous and don’t really mean a whole lot and I haven’t done resolution testing. This scanner is ideal for a hobbyist medium format film shooter that doesn’t want to pay a fortune for scans, or someone looking to restore a few dozen rolls of film or slides. Expect to spend 1 or 2 hours per roll processing though.
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|February 2nd, 2012 9:03 pm
Fantastic. Same as V300 except for negative holder.,
I just got this and have been trying it out. As I surmised, it is identical to the V300 except there is no negative holder in the box. The driver CDROM and all documentation lists both models. I’m using this with Photoshop and Indesign to make personal studies for portrait drawing practice, using art book and magazine images for source material. I was holding my breath to make sure the TIFF file type is included with this version, and it is (in the professional scan mode.) Fabulously smooth images made from ordinary newspaper color ad inserts using only 800 dpi. You can select various destination image types, including up to 48-bit color and up to 12,800 dpi (in professional mode). TIFF files are rather large, but I plan to dump them as soon as I print the cropped images. (After I draw, I no longer need the images.) Of course, also does jpeg format (default) and has a tremendous range of custom formatting before saving, as well as ultra simple ‘point and shoot’ scanning. Also has customizable presets for home mode (email scanning, etc.) and office mode (RGB value settings, for example). I haven’t tried this yet, but it makes PDF files in all but full auto mode, without purchasing Adobe Acrobat, unbelievable. (I have a Fujitsu document scanner that outputs to PDF, but it cost several times more.)
There is the same user selection option for film as a document type as on the V300 so I don’t see why you can’t scan slides and negatives, using a homemade holder or even just guessing where to position film in the center strip of the scanner bed. I don’t plan to scan many film images or I would have gotten the V300, but it was not available for prime shipping. I do have some favorite Velvia slides I will eventually try to scan and see what happens. Will let you know how it goes when I get a chance. Superb scanner, incredible price, and arguably unbeatable Epson reliability, per my previous experience with color inkjets going back to windows 3.1 that just never stopped working well. I based my purchase on all the high praise for the V300/V200 and the assumption that this one uses the same scan engine and software, which it does, the only difference I can tell being the missing film holder. If anything, the V30 is more recent and probably has higher specs than the V300. If you don’t need a film holder, or if you just need to update your flatbed scanner, this is a total no brainer. Forgot to mention, top is hinged and lifts/flips back out of the way.
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|February 2nd, 2012 9:45 pm
Easy to use and does a nice job scanning photos and documents,
The Epson V30 does a nice job of combining an easy-to-use scanner for those who don’t want to have to tweak – just scan please! – with a scanner that has the bells and whistles for those who want to do more.
I used the scanner to scan photos and documents (as a jpeg and also as a PDF). I did not use the email feature (as it basically uses Outlook and I don’t use that email package on my home computer).
Photo Scanning
I tried the Epson with a variety of photos. Photos consisted of several photos of Bryce Canyon in winter (contrast of snow and colors), your basic Grand Canyon photos, a couple of typical people photos (a couple of people standing in a dark room and also photos where the light was more evenly distributed). I also had some photos that had spots in them (black marks in the sky) to test the dust removal option and an old yellowing photo (40+ years old) of a couple to test the color restoration features.
Epson’s default mode is Full Auto mode. If you don’t have any issues with the photos, don’t want to preview them, don’t need to change the size and you just want to scan them, use this option. As in all other modes, there’s no warm-up needed – photos scan quickly and the Epson does a nice job. By default, all photos are saved in your My Pictures directory. (Select Customize and then select the File Save Settings option to change that – you can also change the default name). You can also use this mode if your photos do have issues (dust marks or need the color restored). Select the Full Auto mode, select Customize, select the options – Dust Removal and/or Color Restoration and even for those photos with issues, you can have the Epson give its best shot. I used this option with my “problem” photos to see how the Epson would do. I found that the Epson did a decent job – all of my dust “spots” were gone. My yellowing photo was nice and clear – no yellowing, and a crisp clear photo. As far as the color restoration, I’d give it a B+. It did a nice job of removing the yellow tinge that was in the photo, though personally, I would have liked to see more color put in the photo (which I could do myself in the other modes).
If you want to do more than just scan in the photo – you want to do some tweaking yourself – use one of the other modes that are provided. Office Mode is for scanning documents and previewing the documents (more on that below). Home Mode allows you to customize the settings and preview the photo. It’s a nice in-between option between the Full Auto mode where the scanner does it all and the Professional Mode where you need to figure it out – it gives you the ability to tweak, but doesn’t give you so many options that you don’t know what to do. Professional Mode on the other hand, gives you total control – you tell it about the original, the destination, and the adjustments you want to make. As someone with little experience in tweaking photos, I found the Home Mode the mode I would use most often. I think the Professional Mode is something I would use only occasionally or after playing with this tool a lot.
Scanning documents
I also tried the Epson V30 to scan documents – scanned as jpeg images and also as a PDF. The document was a tax form with my signature on it. I used the Full Auto mode and the Office mode and found in both cases, it was easy and quick to use. Office mode gives you more options – I could tell the scanner the resolution, orientation, and make any adjustments to the image. I could also use Full Auto mode to create the PDF. Very easy.
ArcSoft MediaImpression came with the Epson scanner. It’s another tool that (among other things) allows you to tweak your photos after you’ve scanned them. It works with “all media files” though I only used it for my scanned photos. It’s a photo tool which you can also use to email and archive items. It’s a pretty basic tool that’s easy to use. A nice addition to the scanner.
Documentation that comes along with the product consists of a Quick Start page (English, Spanish, and French versions) and an online User Guide. All were well written and helped me to use the product.
All in all, I recommend the Epson scanner if you want to quickly and easily scan your photos and documents. I like how you can have the scanner do it all, or when you’re ready, have the ability to tweak it yourself. Nicely done!
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|February 2nd, 2012 10:03 pm
Fantastic, Fast Scanner at a Very Affordable Price,
I love my Epson Perfection v30 scanner. It replaced a trusty Epson Perfection 2400 Photo that I have had for about 3 years. The quality of scanned images is better with this new scanner, thanks to the higher DPI rating. And, thanks to the new LED scan technology, there is no longer any warm-up time at all and, on top of that, once the scanning starts, It scans faster than my Perfection 2400 Photo. Finally, it is quieter. It is a winner on all three of these counts compared to my old scanner, no doubt.
Plus, at just under 1 ½” high it is less than half as tall as the Perfection 2400 Photo. This, coupled with the fact that the top opens across the width of the scanner as opposed to along the length, means that this scanner works much, MUCH better for me on the wall-mounted shelf in my home office where I like to put a scanner. This alone has me sold on this scanner as a replacement for my old one, which was always a little hard to get to and kind of “clunky” to use on the shelf.
Finally, this scanner works great with both Mac OS X (v10.5.6) & Windows Vista 64-bit (SP1). I have both a Mac & a PC in my office, and I use a USB switch to switch the scanner back and forth between the two systems. The supplied driver works well on both operating systems – the interface is even the same. And, as a bonus, the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software with the strange name (ABBYY FineReader Sprint) that comes included with the scanner works great (Windows only, however – there is no Mac version of this OCR software).
Finally, at the incredibly affordable price being charged for this scanner, I think it is an awesome deal. For anyone with less-than-professional scanning needs who wants a fast, quiet & capable scanner for either Mac OS X or Windows, I cannot recommend this scanner highly enough. I’d give it 6 stars if I could!
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