Customer Reviews

Epson Perfection V600 Photo Color Scanner (B11B198011)

5 star:		(113)
4 star:		(47)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

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....

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.

Pros:
Easy to use
Great results with film, 6x7, 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 6x7 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.

I purchased the V600 from Amazon at a very good price and have had it for a few weeks. So far the scanner does an excellent job of scanning photographs or slides. The included Adobe Photoshop Elements does an excellent job of fixing and organizing my photos. So far!

Over the past several days I repeatedly get a message from the Epson Scan software that says 'Unable to write to file'. When I click on OK the box goes away. No images are imported to Photoshop or presented for saving by the Epson software if Photoshop is not running.

I've exchanged two e-mails with Epson support and tried both suggested fixes. Neither has worked and unfortunately this problem has rendered the scanner useless. From what research I've done I am not the only buyer having this problem and it is unclear that Epson has a fix.

In short, the scanner is excellent and lives up to the reviews. The software however has made it the equivalent of a brick. If this cannot be fixed I'll have to return the scanner.

If they fix the problem all of my ratings will change to 4 or 5 stars.

Carmine Prestia

This V600 Epson Perfection scanner is the little brother to my V700 which handles anything I throw at it with ease and, shall I say, Perfection?

Obviously the V600 (in the $250 price range) is no match for the nearly $600 V700, but it has some wonderfully capable functions if you're in need of a not-too-pricey device that can handle your old negatives and slides. The V600 can be considered a serious photo scanner with features that include 6400x9600 dpi optical resolution and 3.4 Dmax, medium format film scanning up to 120/220 film size. The V600 offers a LED light source which means no warm-up time. It comes with Digital ICE for both prints and film and Photoshop Elements for photo retouching and includes a high-speed USB 2.0 port. (Note your computer must also have a high speed port to achieve decent speed.)

The V600 has been targeted for both the advanced amateur and the semi-professional and comes with a 35mm filmstrip and slide template, a 200 filmstrip template with film decurler, a power adapter with cable, the USB cable, an installation poster and a CD with scanner software manual, Photoshop Elements software CD and the one-year warranty.

While you might not get true 48-bit high resolution scans, 24-bit is easily attainable and perfectly suitable for most work.

Some have mentioned that Digital ICE can do bizarre things. I didn't experience any problems other than somewhat slow scan time. The software installed without a hitch on my Windows XP machine. The fully automatic scanning is a huge plus, also the ability to scan without having to select and crop each negative. For a modest expenditure, this is a great machine for anyone still using film and slides.

I have scanned over 600 of my old Kodachrome and Kodacolor slides from the early 1980's, with the Epson V600 scanner. It is easy to use and scanning 4 slides into photoshop at 1200 dpi, which I find gives me excellent results for normal slides, takes less than 5 minutes for 4 slides. Photoshop gives me all the color correction I need. For the money I paid through Amazon, I beleive it is a excellent scanner. I strongly recommend it.

Love the fact it autoscans without having to select and crop each neg. Only downfall so far is if you try to scan b&w with ice on the image is all blurry and unusable. Now that I have figured this out I still like this scanner for scanning my old collection of negatives. Also I had to manually install the software on windows 7 64bit.

While I was waiting for my Epson v600 to get here,I read about the problems one person had using the Digital Ice on B&W negatives so I pulled out a bunch of B&W's so I could put the v600 to the test & I've had nothing but success. I'm using windows XP,not the windows 7 like the person that had problems is using. I have no clue to their issues,but it all works for me!

I love the intuitive feel of this wonderful scanner. I put in film images with 12 pictures on the strips and the v600 delivers back to me 12 JPEG or TIFF files in a wide selection of sizes & deposits them in the My Pictures folder. It does the same thing with my slides,4 at a time.

Using the wonderful Epson Perfection v600 Photo Scanner is a breeze,whether it's on film or slides or just the everyday documents that constantly come up in life, they all look sharp and perfect,often better than the original source.

I'm really pleased with this scanner,it has such quality & usability at an incredible price. When I've gone to the local photo shop for the type of transfers I'm doing from slides/film to digital,the locals wanted (and got) $10 an image. For the cost of TIFFs from a roll of film, I own this baby!

This scanner is the Greatest!!!

We needed a new scanner and I selected this one based on technical reviews I found on it's ablility to scan slides and film. I have had it since just before Christmas.

I am very happy with the 35mm slide scans I am getting with the Full Auto Mode and 300 dpi setting. The pictures look great at full screen view on my 24 inch monitor and 4x6 printed photos from the scans look great as well.

It is more than adequate for my needs to digitize my slide collection. It is very easy to load and scan slides. You lay a template on the bed which has guides to get it in the right place and drop up to 4 slides in the open squares in the guide. It takes about 2.6 minutes to scan 4 slides with the settings above.

Yes it will take time to scan a lot of slides, but I am willing to take the time because of the results.

I had one very bad underexposed slide due to bright background light. It appears almost black even using a projector. I was able to get an acceptable picture using Professional Mode and Photoshop. That sold me on the unit and I have been very happy ever since.

I have not tested scaned text conversion, but that is not a concern for me. I can make photocopies of documents and that is all I needed in that regard.

I can definitely recommend this unit so far. Of course, at this stage I have no idea about durability, but it seems to be built pretty well.

The good:

The scanning resoultion is exceptional for the price.

The scanner hardware and epson software work well with an old Mac G4 cube. (With the exception of the Adobe Photoshop Elements noted below.)

The color correction works well on different kinds of color negatives and prints.

There is no warm-up time. The scanner can be used immediately after turning on.

If "unsharp mask" is used, the focus works very well, even if the negatives curl slightly so that the center of the negative is closer to the scanner glass thatn the rest of the negative. It also focuses very well if the negatives are placed directly on the scanner glass. The images do not show any distortion, even if the negatives have a little curl, as long as they are in the holder.


The bad:

The bundled Adobe Photoshop Elements software is useless if you are scanning with an older Mac. It will not install.

The scanner I received has some sort of goo, perhaps adhesive, on the inside of the glass. It is not in the scanning area for negatives, but it shows up on prints. Epson was willing to take the scanner back and refund my money, but getting the unit to a repair center would have been at my expense, even though they would cover the cost of the actual repair. I chose not to bother because I had an immediate need for the scanner for a project on a tight timeline. Since I was only scanning negatives for the project, I just kept using the unit. I have heard that a repair would introduce dust into the unit, and once the unit is opened, it may require repeated cleaning of the inside of the glass. I consider myself fortunate that there is no dust inside the unit, and I am just going to leave it alone.

The glass scanning surface is set slightly lower than the rest of the scanner bed. This makes it impossible to do any large format scanning of pictures larger than the scanner glass. On many other scanners, you can scan large pictures in pieces, and put them together in photoshop. That is not possible with this scanner.

The negative holders are flimsy, and the medium format negative holder does not hold the negatives securely. If the negatives are in very good condition, this is not much of an issue. If the negatives are curled, it is necessary to place them directly on the scanner glass and place another piece of glass on top of them to hold them down. The scanner software will not recognize the negative sizes in this case, so the marquees have to be added manually. This is not difficult.

Sometimes the software does not correctly recognize the negative sizes. If you need to reduce the scan area within a negative, that is easy to do, but sometimes it does not correctly recognize where a negative ends, and the pictures are broken into meaningless fragements. When this occurs, there is no easy way to override the software and put in marquees manually unless you remove the negative holder and redo the preview of the negatives set directly on the glass.

Everything looks slightly out of focus unless unsharp mask is used. This bothers me because it should be possible to scan photos and negatives without unsharp mask. I have heard that adjusting the height of the negatives will help get them into focus, I have not had any luck varying the heights to get better focus. Artifical sharpening would not be necessary if the scanner would focus correctly.

Epson technical support is absolutely horrible. Their sales staff do not understand the product line, and the technical support staff take forever to get back to you, and then have no more knowledge than the information on the Epson website.

"Digital ICE" can do very wierd things to images. On black and white negatives, it often removes the eyes. When it removes large scratches and tears from photos, it often makes a big smeared mess of the repaired section. Much better results can be achieved by taking the time to do these corrections manually in photoshop. I have had occasional very good results with this feature, but I very seldom find that it is worth using.

I am primarily scanning black and white negatives, but for color prints I have been having some difficulty with color. The reds have an overly intense quality, and the faces often have a reddish-pink tinge. I have viewed the images on several different monitors, and althought the images do not always look the same, the faces still often have a pink look to them. Since the color prints I am scanning are very old, and always require color correction, I am not sure whether it is the scanner calibration or the images that are the problem.

Conclustion:

Overall, this scanner has been very useful, within its limitations. I think it is worth the price, for what I have managed to produce with it. I would not buy this particular scanner again because:

I don't need "digital ICE".

The option of being able to scan large format negatives is more valuable than I originally realized. I have been either cropping them by only scanning a portion of them, scanning them in two pieces and putting them together (tedious in the extreme if you are doing more than a few), or putting them on a light table and photographing them (with much better results than I anticipated, but not quite as good as scanning.)

The fast warm-up time may not be worth the additional cost, and the LED lights instead of the fluoresecnt ones may be the cause of the color discrepencies between the original prints and the scanned images.

If you have a lot of negatives to scan, you are in for a long, tedious job, no matter what scanner you choose. I would suggest reviewing the scanned images shortly after doing the scans, so you don't end up with a large number of scans that have to be redone. Also, be selective. Don't bother trying to scan every negative you own, just for the purpose of digitizing an entire collection. It is better to take your time and get really good scans of the few pictures and negatives that are worth enlarging.