Epson Perfection V600 Color Photo, Image, Film, Negative & Document Scanner

Update for the 11th day: All 5400 slide transparencies (35mm mounted slides) were scanned and burned to DVDs at a resolution of 2400 pixels per inch. That was with only a small amount of Color Restoration applied, which adds no time to the scan. We'd go through each set of four preview images, clicking and highlighting the ones we wanted to color restore (click on the slide, not the checkbox). CHECK ON the checkboxes on each preview. That's how the scanner knows you want to scan all four slides you just looked at). br>br>Super-sized 5,400-slide project completed for $199, including blank DVDs and a backup USB thumbdrive. For added security, we purchased an external hard drive and docking station. We still have a fantastic scanner, so it's not all bad. It'll be a lot less expensive than hiring someone to do it for you. Worked for less than two weeks! br>br>Introduce yourself to the world of br>br>br>br>b A bachelor's degree in art with a focus on darkroom photography; For the past 25 years, I've owned and operated my own darkroom; Decade as an Imaging Specialist/Scanner Operator (skip the next few paragraphs and go straight to the settings that worked well for us while scanning a bunch of old slides). br>br>For ten years, I worked at Thomson Learning/Gale Research as a digital imaging specialist. I used PhotoShop 3 for ten years, eight hours a day. 0, flatbed scanners, image setters, and even a Nikon Coolscan slide scanner with an automatic slide feeder are all available. The slide feeder, as I recall, could hold about 40 mounted slides and scanned each slide in about 8 minutes. Every day or two, it would jam. I'd incorporate the digitized images into textbooks, dictionaries, and online resources/databases that we created and charged universities and public libraries for. Meaning: I was working in a publishing house with a professional staff. One of my bachelor's degrees is in fine arts, with a focus on darkroom photography. I still have a photographic darkroom (which I no longer use). Thousands of rolls of transparency (slide) film have been developed by hand by myself. br>br>CLEANING OLD FILM/SLIDESbr>First, let's clear up some misinformation from a previous review: Water can be used to clean old film and slides. When we finished developing the film, how do you think we washed all of the developer, stop bath, and fixer off of it? WE DID IT WITH WATER! And I'm not talking about fancy distilled water here; I'm talking about plain old tap water. The film strips were then hung from ceiling clips until they started to drip. We used scissors to cut the entire roll into manageable strips once it had dried (or we cut the transparency film into individual frames and popped them into slide holders). Streaks and dry spots will appear if you use rubbing alcohol. Two drops of rinse agent per gallon of tap water could be added to the final rinse water as a wetting agent. Dry spots would be completely eradicated as a result of this. Of course, since you don't have a camera, you could use distilled water right now. Wetting solution can be purchased at a store near you. My local store sells distilled water for 99 cents per gallon. br>br>Can you guess what the final rinse was when we developed color and black-and-white paper prints? Yes, that's right! Water from the tap! If you have a paper photograph from the 1950s or later, soaking it in water may be able to remove the stains! Basically, as long as it isn't a tin of glass negatives, you're good to go. Water with a type of silver salt thing from the Civil War Era won't hurt! br>br>Until it dries again, water makes film and paper VERY SOFT and EASY TO SCRATCH. br>br>However, if your film is in reasonable condition, the best bet is to simply blow off the dust with an air duster can, as well as blowing off the dust from this scanner every now and then. br>br>REASON FOR PURCHASE OF THE EPSON V600br>While I still have a Umax Powerlook III that cost around $1700 new, it only does one scan at a time, so I wanted to set up a new, simple scan station for my father to scan his old slides: Each of the 54 slide projector carousels (round things) can hold up to 100 slides. Saving as JPG at 1 compression (no/least compression) at 48-bit using this scanner at 2400dpi. Closed, bit color files are about 4MB each, and open files are about 10MB. This scanner has a maximum resolution of 128,000dpi, but that's way too high for our needs right now: Look through our old photos and send one to an online printing service for a 16x20" print every now and then. SETTINGS FOR SLIDE SCANNINGbr>I installed the CD software, then plugged in the machine, and finally turned it on with the ON/OFF button HIDDEN on the right side of the machine (the online manual and the manual on the CD say to turn it on with the box with a diagonal arrow, but that's WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!). There is an on/off button, despite what the instructions claim. In this regard, the quick start guide is correct. br>br>So, here is a nice setting list for decent slide scans:br>br>Mode = Professionalbr>Document type = Positive filmbr>Image Type = 48-bit CHECK the unsharp mask box to turn it on, and set the level to LOWbr>CHECK the Color Restoration box to turn it on. br>br>I didn't look at anything else. br>br>Click preview, select and flip any upside-down slides with the optionsbr>Click Scan and sit back and wait for all 4 slides to be scanned (it takes about 4 minutes to scan and auto-flip). auto-name and save). ACTUAL PROJECT: br>br> br>Automatically scanning each slide takes 1 minute. auto-name and br>54 boxes of slides, each with 100 slides, equals 5400 slides. br>That's 5400 minutes, or 90 hours, or about two-thirds of a day. and-a- half- I put in a week's worth of work at my previous job, working eight-hour days. It's entirely possible! br>br>Because each scan on the disc is less than 5MB, we'll round it up to 5MB. br>5,400 x 5MB equals 27,000MB, or 27GB.
WOW! 27GB will fit perfectly on a low-cost 64GB thumb drive!br>It will also fit on approximately 7 DVD-ROMs. R discs. 100 DVDs on a spindle Rs is about $20, hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha br>br>So, here's what I've come up with: get this; Obtain a spray duster can; If your originals are too filthy, add some distilled water; a 64GB thumb drive, as well as a few DVDs Blank discs with the letter R WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS? br>br>WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS? Other "scanners" are less expensive and claim to scan in less than a second. They're just cheap webcams in a cheap plastic box that take a crappy photo of your slide; you'd be better off taping your slides/negatives to a window and snapping a photo with your phone! The quality is truly appalling. Furthermore, because it is a flatbed scanner, this Epson can scan paper photographic prints. Yes, it's a little slower (at 2400dpi) at about 1 minute per slide, but you can save some time by scanning at 1200dpi or even 100dpi. It all depends on how you intend to use them. Then, if you're on the internet/Facebook, you'll get 100 Using your photo to print a massive poster: 300dpi is fine. Set the resolution to 128,000 dpi and astound them. Everything in between is also included. Basically, it'll set you back $50-$100. $100 for something that is almost certain to let you down; Alternatively, you could pay $200 for this thing, which is fantastic. br>br>I'd rather spend two weeks getting 5,400 great scans than spend five hours getting crappy scans that I'll end up deleting than spend five hours getting crappy scans that look terrible and I'll end up deleting. br>br>CONSbr>This device is enormous (due to the fact that it can scan actual sheets of paper). br>It's substantial (really substantial and of high quality). It has an odd spring on top: br> When it opens, it tries to slam upward and closes by slamming downward: WARNING: BE AWARE! Two of the three manuals do not mention the On/Off button. It's near the bottom on the right side. br>br>WHAT DIDN'T WORK (FOR US) AND WHAT DIDbr>First and foremost, when creating slides, use the professional mode. There are a few disadvantages to using the automatic easy mode: At the highest resolution, it only allows 1200dpi scans; Despite the fact that it is only 1200dpi, it appears to take longer than the professional mode, which is 2400dpi. Despite the fact that the manual states that the preview can be skipped. It actually scans one preview at a time and displays it to you while it scans, so the preview section takes FOUR times as long. When you choose the color restoration option, you'll also have the following options: Color has been restored in the preview, but not in the scan! It's a strange software flaw. So: It requires two times the amount of time. It takes four times as long and does not apply color restoration to the scan that is saved to your computer automatically. Another issue is that in automatic mode, the unsharp mask is not an option! Thus: You must use professional mode (and re-scan) to scan, color restore, and sharpen your images. AFTER EVERY PREVIEW, check the color restoration box after selecting "all" 4 previews with the blue frame highlighting them! Make use of the professional setting. 48- br>br>48- br>br>48- br>br>48- When compared to 24-bit color, bit color is noticeably superior. bit. There's more to it than nitpicking. It's easy to notice if you're picking. 24- bit produces color blocks that look like they're from the 1990s. JPGs that have been compressed, hahahahahahahahahahahahaha Make certain to use the 48-hour rule. option of a byte ICE/dust correction is something I never enable because it does a couple of things: scans/saves at a slower rate; It can also alter the appearance of some images in strange ways. I've discovered that it works well on a variety of photos, but then does strange things to the glint in people's eyes in portraits, making them appear insane. The sprayduster can works better for us. br>br>I played around with the grain removal setting a little, but it just made my test slides blurry. Yep: It's difficult to see the grain in a blurred photo. Grain removal is turned off for me. If you want to blur your scans later, you can always do so. br>br>Reduction of red EYE: I suppose if you have 500 slides of people with red eye (reflection of on-lookers), you could do it. You could use this if your camera flash unit's light is bright enough, but I don't because I don't know what it will do to normal portraits or even photos without people in them. It's not worth the risk. br>br>Mask of Unsharpness: It's never too late to sharpen; However, it is more difficult to repair something that has been oversharpened. Sharpening raises the color value of two adjacent colors (heavier outlines) by a factor of two. Because I like the sharpening feature, I left it on "LOW. " It's a good bet to put your money on. br>br>Color restoration: br>br>Color correction: br>br>Color correction: WOW! In the past, I would never have used this in a professional setting, but it works perfectly with our Kodak EktaChrome and KodakChrome slides from the 1970s and 1980s. 1990s. I mean, the advantages of having this checkbox CHECKED ON are incredible! Something that would normally take me ten minutes in PhotoShop is now available in a matter of seconds. Even on slides I thought were perfectly fine, it works wonders; USE IT! br>br>There are some other options to consider: Uncheck the box that says "write over files with the same name" (why would you want to overwrite your previous scans?). (It's a recipe for disaster. ) I believe it is set to name things in numerical order (1, 2, 3, etc. ). I changed the default name from "Img" to "Slide," so they now have names like "Slide001," "Slide002," and so on. br>br>Type of file: JPG with no compression (1 out of 100) was my choice. TIFF is an option as well. To be honest, the JPG is nice, but I used to save as TIFF when I worked as a professional (paid) scanner. It was lossless (i. e. , no color information was lost). JPEG has come a long way, and you won't have any issues if you set it to no or low compression. TIFFs are still a little larger, but if you're only scanning your slides once and then throwing them away, scan large and save as TIFF for that once-in-a-lifetime chance of archiving. To be honest, the JPEG is perfectly fine: at a 1 setting, there are no jpeg blocky digital artifacts to be seen. even at a high magnification When it comes to most things online/social/tv set/BluRay player/etc. , JPEGS also seem to play better (still). TIFF vs. JPG (as long as the JPG is set to 1 No compression) isn't a big deal. UNFORTUNATELY, it defaults to a compression level of around 100, which WILL LOOK AWFUL, lol. Set the value to 1 and then forget about it. Your photographs are going to be fantastic. Do you have any concerns? Then set it to save as TIFF files, and you'll only need to burn a few more DVDs if you're working on a big project. DVDs are inexpensive these days, so it's not a big deal. It was always this way when I worked in publishing: Files sent to book printers and files sent to archive CDs are both TIFF files. JPGs are used in online databases and on educational CD-ROMs. ROMS. It used to matter a great deal which you chose when, but now it doesn't because you can effectively disable JPG compression. Then it behaves similarly to a TIFF, but it can be viewed on the web, on TV, and so on. br>br>In fact, changing the bit-order is one of the most important things you can do. This scanner's rate has dropped to just 24 percent. bit produces color blocks that are flat and uninteresting. in the same way that over- How compressed jpgs appeared in the 1990s! That is why I recommended using a 48-hour clock. bit. br>br>When you first open Epson Scan, you can uncheck the "include color profiles" box somewhere in the advanced settings option. Unless you're sending your files to a professional printer who requires specific color profiles, THIS JUST INCREASES THE SIZE OF EACH OF YOUR SCANS! I don't care about LAB COLOR vs CMYK vs Srgb ICC profiles, and when I worked as a professional, our printers (and by printers, I mean the humans who ran huge color printing presses that were about 40' long) would set their prepress to strip out/ignore any color profiles we sent them accidentally. because THEY wanted control over the color, not some random file that no one on our end looked at, changed, fixed, or cared about. UNCHECK THE BOX TO SAVE SPACE ON YOUR COMPUTER UNLESS YOU'RE A PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER SENDING SCANS TO A COLOR PRINT PUBLICATION THAT REQUIRES YOU TO SEND ALONG COLOR PROFILES. Even if you sent a scan to go on the cover of National Geographic, I'm sure your profile settings would be overridden when the magazine was printed. br>br>For slides, use a light table to flop them down on and arrange them. A lamp can also help you distinguish between the shiny side and the dull emulsion side with raised lines. Face the ceiling with the emulsion side. If you don't have a lightbox, you can make one by placing a fluorescent lamp bulb inside a clear tuppeware container or something similar. br>br>I take four slides out, hold them by the edges with space between them with my thumb and index finger, and dustspray between all four at the same time; it's quick and easy! Take the time to organize your desk and work area, and you'll be able to shave DAYS off the time it takes to finish your project. br>br>WORKFLOWbr>Each box of 100 slides gets its own folder on the desktop. It gets its name from the old slide box's spine. br>br>Computer and scanner should be turned on. br>Click on Epson Scanbr>Select "Professional" and "Current Settings"br>2400dpibr>Check color restoration box onbr>Check unsharp max on / Mediumbr>Dust spray and insert four slidesbr> br>Click Previewbr>Click on any of the four previews (NOT the small checkboxes) to see them highlighted in blue. To rotate any highlighted previews, press "E" on your keyboard. br>br>****THIS IS A VERY IMPORTANT STEP: (The color restoration feature shuts itself off after every preview, and if you turn it back on, it only applies to the previews with blue frames around them!) Click the "ALL" button to highlight all four previews with blue frames, then click "RESTORE COLOR CHECKBOX TO ON"/ (The color restoration feature shuts itself off after every preview, and if you turn it back on, it only applies to the previews with blue frames around them! This is for "pros" who color restore one out of every four slides, or whatever. br>br>Select "Scan" from the drop-down menu. br>br>Four slides should be changed. br>Repeat a total of 193 times. Once you've accumulated 4GB of data, save it to DVDs, drag and copy to a thumbdrive, and drag and copy to an external hard drive. br>Remove scans from the computer. Rep for a total of 7 times. br>Open a bottle of champagne and pop the cork. You've completed the task! Actually, because scanning is such a tedious process, you'll probably want to drink throughout the entire project. That is why I chose to work as a librarian. Yes, working as a librarian is far more exciting than operating a scanner. LOL! br>br>Save the files to DVDs. Save to a USB thumb drive. br>Save to an external hard drive (1 Terabyte for $49) with an external hard drive plug-in. $20 for a docking station that can be used to play games. br>br>Keep the slides somewhere cool and dark. br>Distribute a few thumb drives around the room. br>Distribute DVD copies to various locations. br>I've got yet another thumbdrive to plug into our TV to watch the slides! Many BluRay players can also play photos from USB thumb drives (or from DVDs you've burned). br>br>3 different types of archive media (USB thumbdrive, DVD-ROM, etc. ) External Hard Drive (R, for External Hard Drive). plus the copies on the computer to which the scanner is connected. br>br>FOR SLIDES, THE SHARP SIDE GOES UP (the dull emulsion side goes down). br>br>With a little more money and time, you can get USEFUL FANTASTIC scans. br>br>This slide project was researched by both my father and me; he is a film/darkroom photographer who also worked as an automotive engineer, and I worked as a digital imaging specialist from 1997 to 2005. I started as a librarian in 2007 and currently work as one. He took a few days to decide, and the Epson v850, which costs around $1000, was his favorite. After a 15-minute search, I decided to purchase the V600 (which costs around $200). LOL. It's only natural. br>br>Take a look at some of the photos used as examples in the Wolverine and Jumble reviews: Some of the photographs are so obscure that I have no idea what they are! It's difficult to assess their digitization quality, to say the least. br>br>If you have the time and money to invest in this machine, the results will not disappoint you. br>br>Computer (we have a 2/3-year-old Dell with an i5 core processor and Windows 10, regular non-commercial version) This Scannerbr>Dust-off Sprayerbr>USB Thumbdrive (archive 1)br>Blank DVDs (archive 2 or more if you want to burn multiple copies to send to various relatives)br>External HD (archive 3)br>Time: 1 minute per slidebr>br> They laid-off everyone and sent the work to China/India, as you might expect from a multi-million dollar publishing empire. They did, however, sell my computer and Umax for a low price! I'm not sure who got the Nikon CoolScan slide scanner (with auto-focus) to take home with them. LOL! feeder) GET THIS if you want a simple solution with GREAT quality and TONS of user-changeable settings (but also simple settings). br>br>Are you working on 50,000 slides in a month? So, hire someone to do them for you for 60 cents per slide, and then sell you an external hard drive with your scans on it. in addition to shipping In addition, service is provided more quickly. plus insurance, which will give you a few dollars if the shipper loses all your slides, leaving you with about $300 instead of your photos and the horror of losing priceless, irreplaceable photos. br>br>As a side note: It would cost at least $3,240 to scan my 5,400 slides (plus shipping, plus the hard drive on which the scans are returned, and so on). For that amount of money, I could: br>br> Purchase this Epson v600 and pay a friend, a young relative, a random stranger from Craigslist, a college student, or a neighbor $3000 to do the actual scanning for me! br>br>If there was one thing I could give you, it would be: a template to help you plan your project, setup, and costs a few simple start-up settings for great slide scans I hope you find this information useful. br>br>As a side note, this thing comes in a GIANT box. Everyone assumed I had just purchased a new television set. br>br>UPDATE: br>br> Even after spending time testing settings, setting up a light box, and unpacking and dusting 54 boxes of 100-watt bulbs, we're on our second day of ownership. With the help of the slide carousel wheels, we were able to scan two of the 54 boxes! That's not half bad! Tomorrow it's supposed to snow, so we'll probably finish another two boxes. So, in about a month, we'll have finished scanning our massive archive. We've already copied some of the scans to a USB drive and inserted it into a BluRay player: SEEING OUR OLD PHOTOS WAS AMAZING! Don't waste any more time looking for the cheapest scanners: br>br> THIS IS THE ONE YOU'RE LOOKING FOR! br>br>THE ONLY THING WRONG WITH IT IS THIS: The "Color Restoration" box unchecks itself after each four-slide batch is previewed. As a result, you must first select all four previews, then check the color restoration box, and finally scan. However, doing so takes about 2 seconds and is a LOT faster than trying to color correct them in PhotoShop. I have a 5-hour block available. Color correcting an RGB color image takes 15 minutes, and color correcting a CMYK image for print (textbook, magazine, book cover, etc. ) takes even longer. You won't even have to think about it after a few dozen. All you have to do is click ALL, Color Correct, and SCAN with your hand. Muscle memory is a term that describes the ability to recall information from The "hidden" power button was also a pain, as it was misidentified in two of the three manuals (online, on CD, and printed startup guide). br>br>Best of luck, have fun, and spend a day or two scanning and rescanning a few documents to find the ideal settings and physical workflow for you!

- Mike, a resident of Detroit.

Abigail Henderson

| Mar 22, 2021

If you use a Mac, you should not purchase this product.

. Unless you're completely fine with getting lost on the internet in search of the right software update for your computer. Since at least 2014, Epson has had a *known* Mac compatibility problem. For years, people have been discussing my exact problem on message boards and printer forums. br>br>The problem is that when scanning photos, the scanner goes to sleep in the middle of the job, as described elsewhere. If you have four photos on the scanner bed, it will go to sleep as soon as photo 1 is scanned. If you wiggle the mouse, it will wake up. Then it'll wake up, scan one more photo, and fall asleep again. Only 50% of the original task has been completed to date. This quickly becomes boring. br>br>We only figured out how to get rid of this inconvenient, pointless bug because my tenacious brother spent two hours cursing and swearing before finding a link BURIED on the Epson support page. "EPSON Scan Common Updater v1" is the name of the update. 00" and is located on the Utilities tab. Hey, Epson, how difficult would it be to include that information on the printer's instruction sheet? Or, since the issue has been present for four years, why not just fix it? Epson, please get your act together. br>br>.

Simone Tyler

| Jan 30, 2021

As advertised, the pace is slow. However, the owner of hundreds of old family slides will be pleased with the results. This is an early review, and I reserve the right to change it if I am later disappointed. I've only had the v600 for one day, and it's taken me the better part of that day to copy (and process in Lightroom) sixteen of the hundreds of slides I have to choose from. While this may appear to be a daunting task, it has changed the way I approach working with my family's archives. Instead of simply copying them to digital in their current state, I'm being given the chance to improve them. All of these photos were taken at a time when post-processing was only available to those who could afford a high-end darkroom. br>br>Be aware, however, that the v600 will not copy your thousands of slides in an instant. With the right mindset, however, you can enjoy the process of improving those photographic captures that you've kept and treasured but rarely looked at. br>br>Here's how I do things: br>br>
1. At 400 dpi, copy four slides (the capacity of the scanner).
2. Lightroom should be used to import them.
3. Lightroom can be used to improve the image.
4. As a final touch, edit the photo in a separate software, Noiseless CK, while still in LR.
5. Publish from Lightroom to Flickr, my cloud archive. br>br>While the process takes time, it's fun and rewarding to see old photos in Kodak Carousel brightness and color - plus it gets better This review is accompanied by a few examples. br>br>Bearing in mind that I am a hobbyist photographer and family archivist, I doubt this machine would hold up to professional use in terms of durability or image quality. It is, however, perfect for my needs at less than $200. I'd pick the following nits: br>br> There isn't a whole lot of guidance. You only get one small poster, but if you're used to packing electronic devices, it'll suffice. Once you get the hang of it, it's actually quite simple to use. Added to review on October 17, 2016: br>I'm including two copies of an old slide, one of which was shot with a macro lens on my 35mm digital camera. The v600 scanner was used to scan the other. You can see how the scanner and ICE software removed the mildew from the old slide without using any chemicals. It's amazing how much of a difference there is.

Patrick Massey

| Oct 01, 2021

Since then, we've purchased two computers, one with Windows 10 Pro and the other with Windows 10 Home, both of which are 64-bit. The current Epson software driver does not work correctly, though it works better on the Pro version of Windows 10 than on the Home version. It's a great scanner, but it's nearly useless if you're running Windows 10. Epson customer service has been unable to provide assistance. Epson's driver must be updated!.

Khloe Briggs

| Sep 08, 2021