Customer Reviews

Epson Perfection V200 Color Scanner

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I have owned three different scanners in the last eight years. This one has the best scanner and the worst software of any of them. Five stars for the hardware and one for the software averages to three stars.

The hardware is quite nice, attractive and slim design with a side-opening high-capacity lid for bound material. The scans are good too, and hardware installation was trivial, just power brick and USB cable. Scans are very rapid through USB 2.0 interface.

Now for the bad news. The included software bundle is junk. Installation from the included CD uses a non-standard installer (what's wrong with Apple's Installer?), requires multiple license agreements, and spews four or five small applications all over your Apps folder. The "install log", rather than saying what was installled (and where) just says "Application installed successfully". Too bad these applications are useless. There are old and poorly ported versions of stuff that was probably written for Windows 98. Although the TWAIN drivers are compatible with Apple's "Image Capture" application, they don't play well with other software and so you pretty much are forced to use the clunky interface provided by Epson.

The scanner has great resolution. Too bad you can't use it - the software's file size limit means you can't scan an 8x10 picture at full resolution. Duh! Why didn't somebody in Quality Control notice this?

If you want to use OCR (scanning to a text file) it's a sorry experience. You launch the bundled OCR app and it forces you to get the scan through the Epson software instead of interfacing with the scanner itself. The app for Mac OS X is a poor reworking of a Mac OS 9 app which is a poor reworking of a pre-XP Windows app. I would guess that they haven't tweaked the core source code for at least six years.

Come on, Epson. With such great hardware, why can't you find some better software to go with it?

Like many boomers, we've been wanting to digitize our 35mm slides, as well as a few B&W and color negatives. I'd been researching film scanners for several months and had decided against the $500 Nikon, which apparently has problems with Kodachrome slides, and was considering Epson's $450 V700 when I chanced on the announcements for this little beauty. SO GLAD we waited!
We've scanned over 200 slides so far, and continue to be impressed, amazed, really at the quality. Great color, good shadow detail, sharpness - it really gives up precious little to units costing many times as much. We've also scanned some prints and negatives with similar results.
The included software is very intuitive - operates in three modes - Automatic, Home, or Professional; I'm finding the "Home" mode to be the best for most our purposes. Also included is ArcSoft's PhotoImpression 6, which after a brief learning curve has become my favorite editing software - even includes healing and cloning tools for fixing damaged photos. (The dust elimination feature in the scanning software seems to do an excellent job, too - Between that feature and the well-designed and marked slide and film carrier, we're whipping through our project much faster than anticipated. One note here - This unit is definitely designed for 35mm. It can't handle larger negatives at all, and cuts off part of our old Instamatic (square format) slides.
Scanning four slides at 400dpi takes about 7 minutes and results in an avg. file size of 2.8mb and a pixel size of 2400X1600 - about equivalent to a 7mp digital shot. The V200 is capable of scanning to 4800dpi, but such a scan would take over 15 minutes per slide and result in a file size of over 40mb - very cumbersome to work with, and for most home users there's simply no need. The scans we're getting at 400dpi look great full-screen on the monitor and make beautiful 8X10 prints.
My computer has a dual-core processor, and I've found I can edit photos while scanning with no loss of performance in either program. Nice!
In short, we continue to be impressed with the design and performance of the V200. It is heartily recommended to anyone wanting to convert film to digital.

I am also very pleased with this scanner.I have scanned about a 100 slides, and I'm still experimenting with its features. I found the Epson Scan software very logical and easy to use. It has a basic starter mode, and a profesional mode. I use it at home and found the Profesional mode meets my needs. I have some previous experience with another scanner, but I found the Epson software much easier to use. It does little convenient things, for example, the preview mode does a quick scan, and then lets you orient the picture. Then when you do the actual scan, it is filed with the correct orientation, so you don't have to rotate the images. I didn't install the Arcsoft, because I use a version of Photoshop Elements and my camera software. You can import into Photoshop. Also noteworthy is the ABBYY software that has word recognition. I haven't used this feature yet, so I can't comment on it.
Bottom line, I'm getting great scanned slides ( and I'm picky) and a fun easy to use software. At 3600 dpi, the average file size is 1meg, equivilent to a 7 megapixel camera, using Photoshop baseline filing. At 4800, I'm getting around 3 meg files. Optimized Photoshop files are much larger. It will go up to 9600 optical in Pro mode. And then even higher interpolated. In the 9600+ modes it is slow. But it can be worth the wait for your best pictures if your going to supersize them.

Using a digital camera and a slide projector would be far easier and quicker for digitizing your old slides!!!

Those of us of a certain age would like to digitize our 35mm slides from the "good old days". After reading many reviews citing difficulties with virtually every available slide-capable scanner, I chose the Epson V200 based on 2 out of 3 Amazon reviews being very favorable--especially regarding ease of use. As it turned out, there was nothing easy about it.

There is not even a selection for "35mm Slides"--you have to figure out that "positive film" is probably the place to start although there different procedures for dealing with actual positive film. I found very little that was "intuitive" or easily recognizable. For example, Epson calls the adjustable selection area "marquee"--not in any English dictionary I've ever seen. Search for "Slides" or "35mm" in "Help" and there is nothing to be found!

You cannot start the software unless you first manually turn on the scanner. My ancient HP scanner comes on automatically when its software is started.

Every aspect of the Epson V200 software from installation to operation is unbelievably clunky by 2007 standards. I agree with the reviewer who suspects this is antiquated software poorly rewritten for current operating systems. Too bad, as the hardware seems to have very good potential--you'll just grow old and frustrated trying to utilize it!

After several aggravating hours of the Epson software fighting me every step of the way, I had maybe 3 usable 35mm slide scans. I doubt I will live long enough to scan the few hundred slides in my collection and certainly would not want to suffer the prolonged Epson agony that would be required.

The many ways Epson's software conspires to defeat your diligent efforts are truly astounding. Almost every setting or selection unexpectedly affects something else. And there seems to be a great tendency for settings and selections to revert to default after your painstaking efforts. Who wants a slide scan to be original size?

I have worked with computers and software for decades--including 5 years as a webmaster for a government agency--and this has to be the most USER-UNFRIENDLY software I've ever seen.

BUYER BEWARE !!!

I almost did not open the box after reading a review below about the Software (GUI) being so bad. After deciding what the heck, I am over 30, can figure out most anything, I decided to give this scanner a try.

The software loaded without problem (Win XP, SP2) and without a bunch of advertising junkware. I powered up. Stuck a photo in the machine pressed the scan button and few seconds later I had my first ever scan. Took less than 5 minutes from opening the box. Very cool.

Next I put some slides in the included holder. The holder has little hints on it as to orientation, placement etc. It took a look at the instructions to realize I needed to remove the white cover/shield in the lid to scan when using the film holder. The GUI has drop down boxes to choose what you are scanning. I.e. positives, negatives, photos, 3d items, B&W, Color, etc.

The slide scans are one minute each and quite good. I have an old Olympus Slide scanner that was built to operate on Win 95. It took several minutes for each slide and did not produce as good of a scan. The V200 does 4 slides in 4 minutes. No doubt it will take me months to digitize my several thousand slides. But it is not as painfull as the dedicated Olympus slide scanner.

For a cheap (< $100) scanner the V200 is a winner in my opinion.

I'm a Mac user. The software seems to be OK - its not great, but Epson is promising a Leopard update (see http://www.epson.com/leopard for more information).

The main beef I have with it so far is not the quality, the lid, the software. Its the plugs - for both power and USB.

Look at the scanner. See the power/PDF/Mail/print buttons in front? That's exactly where the power and USB plugs are. Incredibly counterintuitive - who the heck wants cables running to the front of their desk? And you could move the scanner such that the cables are to the back, but then the buttons are far away!

*Sigh* If I were looking for a scanner today, I wouldn't buy this again. It is too much of an eyesore and cable management annoyance to have the cables off to the front.

For what its worth, I turned the scanner around - and have to get up to push the buttons :-\.

After much research and recommendation, we purchased the Epson scanner. The first one arrived and wouldn't work correctly. After calling the manufacturer, we discovered it was defective. I immediately contacted Amazon and my new scanner arrived in days without costing me anything extra. (Just as a side note, Amazon was great about the return!!) As soon as I got the new scanner, I started to scan my 35mm photos and negatives. It is quick and easy and the quality is fantastic. I am now able to get all my photos on cd and in digital scrapbooks at amazing speed and quality. I would HIGHLY recommend Epson and any of their scanners to anyone!!!

First off, I too had a smudge under the glass of mine. It was in the shape of the side of a palm and pinky finger, but without the fingerprint (like the person was wearing a glove). It is obvious in a scan with a very dark background only, otherwise not noticeable at all. Otherwise very clear glass. I had a Visoneer scanner that also had foggy glass (just generally foggy), so no big deal.

Now, I have a gripe about this scanner. The size of the glass is 9 x 12 inches, but the scans are only upto 8.5 x 11.7 inches. This creates problems when placing items on the glass and trying to ensure all actually will be scanned (doing a Preview will help). Also, the scanner cuts off between an eighth and quarter inch on the front and left sides of the glass. This can cut off decorative borders or small text at the edge of documents or photos unless placing the item a little inward from the edge. I find it hard to keep things straight when placing this way.

Aside from these issues, this is a great scanner. The lid has a white plastic cover inside , like most copiers/scanners do (I've read that Canon's has a cardboard insert). The insert removes easily to reveal the slide/film attachment (you have to put this behind the lid when you get the scanner, it comes in its own bag). I have my scanner positioned so that the lid opens to the back. It is on my desk's hutch which is 12 inches deep, so it fits perfectly. It's fast at previewing and scanning. I find that if I do a full scan at 600dpi photo, my hard drive actually can't keep up with the speed of the scan. So the scanner pauses throughout the scan waiting for the hard drive to write the data. A faster drive will not have this problem, at least not at 600dpi. I would like to point out that if you like to scan at high resolutions (I've gone as high as 4800 dpi with beautiful results on old photobooth photos) this scanner will do just that, but you need enough hard drive space on your system partition (usually C) to accommodate such a large scan, regardless of where you save the file.

As far as the driver goes, I use it alone without any software (when I scan inside PSP 9, I notice bugs in its settings). I like using Professional Mode. If you have any knowledge of 300dpi versus 600dpi, or color versus greyscale, then this should be easy enough for you. When scanning multiple items, PREVIEW allows you to select each area separately, then scan all at one time (the scanner will actually scan each one separately, save the file, go back to the edge, then scan the next until all are scanned, which seems wasteful on the scanner, but I guess other scanners do this way). Make sure to click the "All" button after selecting in order to scan all at once, otherwise it only scans the last item selected. By clicking on the icon next to the SCAN button,you can choose to save as JPG, BMP, TIFF, Multi-TIF and PDF. You can also choose where to save them, what prefix will be used for the file name and the start number. It also lets you open the folder where the file is saved or reopen the dialog after a scan so you can change settings between scans (like saving one scan as a BMP and then as a JPG, or in a different location, etc).

For magazine scans, I find descreening set to magazine at 600 dpi to be best. This feature actually removes the dot pattern typical of magazine scans. It works best on larger scans, smaller ones being too grainy. I find no use for Unmask Sharp or any of the color enhancing modes. I also find no use for Dust Removal which tends to make hairlines and eyebrows look like they were painted on. The thing that makes this scanner really stand out from my old Visioneer is the auto-exposure setting. I almost always use this. TIP: I use a black construction paper backer on many magazine scans to eliminate bleed through of the text on the other side of the page. This is also useful for two-sided documents where bleed through is apparent.

Lastly, I like that the scanner goes into standby mode after ten or fifteen minutes (still haven't timed this, believe it or not). If I restart the PC it stays in standby (my Visioneer always woke up which wastes energy and bulb life). It only comes on if I start the driver or push the power button. The warmup time is less than 30 seconds also, so better than my old scanner with that, too. The other buttons are useless for me. I didn't install any of the disc's software. I downloaded the driver from the Epson website.

I've done over a thousand scans with this scanner and had one crash (my fault - tried to cancel in the middle of a scan in Paint Shop Pro). My old scanner crashed every 20 or so scans. Photos look as good as I hoped, noticeably better than my Visioneer 6100, and I can scan at higher resolution for enlargements. Magazine scans are very good, but need to be shrunk to look sharp (I'd say anything more than 50% is too big for good quality). I use them as desktop wallpaper, anyway (at 1600 x 1200 pixels after shrinking, an 8x10 inch scan looks very good after some editing). I still haven't used the slide/film attachment, so no comment on that. I wish I could say it's better than current competing scanners, but I haven't used any of them.

Used with a 512mb WIN XP desktop.

I couldn't be more pleased with this scanner - cheap, gives beautiful results quickly and easily. I have scanned nearly 800 slides and negatives so far, and a few photos, and am completely satisfied with the results. I am not a photographer, just someone with a ton of old film to convert. You scan, it saves the files automatically, numbered, no need to name or save manually. Dead easy.

I gather that if I were someone who reads manuals I'd find that it does more, but I'm not. I just had a lot of scanning to get done before Christmas.

Two things: You slip out the white backer that resides inside the lid when you're scanning slides or negatives, put it back in for photos. I think the pictograph instructions don't quite make that as clear as it might be.

And: I don't mind, but it is odd that the scanner, once it does its job, has to be restarted each time. This is just pushing the "GO" button on the unit, but alternatively it might be good to put a shortcut on your desktop rather than using the button. I do think that if this unit gives out, it will be that button that goes, as it can get a lot of use. Still, if you had to pay 35 cents for every slide you want scanned, you'd pretty quickly pay more than the cost of this little gem.

Highly highly recommended!

I don't scan a ton of material, but I do it enough that I wanted an inexpensive, but quality scanner. You can get up to 4800 dpi (dots per inch) resolution which is greater than most photography shops use (Walgreens, etc.) However, you must have a quality printer and photo paper to see the results. This has all the basics, like scanning directly to Email and creating PDF's. The lid lifts up one inch and beds back over for objects that are bulky (this is a big deal when scanning from thick books). I don't scan slides, but I understand this has a neat feature that makes it easier. There is also a very cool feature where you can restore faded color photos - it's a real trip. There is other software that I don't even use that most people would benefit from (like the Dust Correction and other software that is way over my head). It's light and can fit almost anywhere without plugs and wires getting in the way. I use mine with a PC (it is MAC compatible) and have had no problems. It's really just great for one-button scanning. Fast too. I bought mine at a local chain electronics store, but the price here is very competitive.