Epson V300 Photo
RATING
I can only give five stars when I have a comparison with my use of another scanner--but I strongly suspect such a comparison would not change my opinion of this one. I am delighted, and it exceeds all my expectations. Therefore, four stars and probably five.
USES
I had two purposes for a scanner: My primary function is to preserve long out of print and often rare history and theological texts, making them available to other scholars and researchers-- thus, it had to be a flatbed. The second was to preserve and share old photos.
Twenty four hours ago I purchased this unit, led to this choice by reviews, and finally deciding based upon the LED scanning technology, the portability, the price and the bundled software. It cost me twenty dollars more (one hundred total) for the V300 which I believe is the same as the V30 except the V300 has the inclusion of the 35mm film and slide holding frame which I think could be of use to me.
MODES
I don't know why they use the terms they do for the modes of use. They ought to be: Photo mode, Text mode, Auto mode and Professional mode. Instead, Photo is called "Home", Text is called, "Office", Auto and Professional are what you would think. The menus are otherwise intuitive, but you can (as I did) read the manual if you want.
PHOTOS
I started with photos. 300 dpi resolution is sufficient for all of my needs, but I tried 1200 to see what it would do. Using 1200 is 400% of original, and using that setting, and zooming in using common photo software, the detail was far beyond my expectations--almost like a crime movie zooming in on the subject's glasses to see the reflection of the photographer. Almost. This is well beyond my needs, as I am preserving photos as they are-- not photoshopping for improvements. Yet...
RESTORATION
I could not resist trying the automatic restoration. I began with the default setting of 300 dpi, which I will use across the board from now on--simply because it is more than adequate for my uses. I have a black and white family photo from the 1890's, and I had to view the original under bright light to make out any detail, so faded was it. Seconds later, the preview image in "Home" mode" (see above) and leaving the default for "color photo," showed a perfectly balanced contrast, popping out detail my eye could not detect in the original. Excellent.
I then took a 1941 color portrait, and left the settings in "Home Mode" 300 dpi, and "color restoration" checked. The original's color was skewed, almost no red remaining. A push of the button and the image burst out in what I believe must have been the original colors. Excellent.
The last photo test was of a snapshot of me in which the flash had made my skin appear pasty white, while I was actually quite tan. I used the Professional Mode and played with the controls removing a bit of red, removing green on the intuitive graph display for that purpose, and playing with the other controls for few seconds resulting in a very good final product.
TEXT
Scanning whole books into pdf files is my main use. But I tested more than that.
OLD NEWSPAPWER CLIPPING
My first test was actually a ninety year old newspaper clipping. Using "Office" mode, I did nothing but preview and then scan. The software did its thing and perhaps a minute later I had opened the pdf document using acrobat (the free version) and the image was an exact replica. I used the text select tool in Acrobat to select the entire article and then pasted it into MS Word. The supplied OCR software (ABBYY FineReader Sprint Plus) had done a fair job for a free bundled product and a terrible ink speckled original (like all newspaper print in hose days). The pdf file was perfectly readable as it was. The ability to search ad find specific words and phrases would be easily seen in the version of what I copied from the pdf file and then pasted into Word. The result was good enough to make sense to my eye and brain to read it, but the ink speckle from the original showed up as various characters, and quite a few "are enn" showed as "emm" as well many other common OCR scanning errors. It was along way from being usable for citing directly--perhaps ten minutes of clean-up for that one full column of news print.
My second test was also old newspaper but well preserved in a scrap book. There were four items on the page I tested, and in "Office" mode, I simply selected the four parts of the page that included the actual clippings in the preview pane (the selection is easy, fast and called a "marquee." I would call it a "cropping selection tool." Then I clicked all, and all four boxes surrounding the four clippings were selected. Next, I selected pdf as the output file type from the file-folder icon on the main window, and then selected scan. Again, the software did its thing. I received a four page pdf file, a page for each selected item. The results of the image and the OCR test were the same as before.
BOOKS
Finally, I scanned a single page from a very old textbook with a rather awkward to read font. Using the same settings as before, the pdf file was perfect, and the OCR work was far better. A proofread and a few mistakes on that one page. Still, that is more editing than I will want to do, but that is a software upgrade--not related to the hardware. The software allows you to scan each and all page into a single pdf document if you prefer, and which I will make use of.
OCR SOFTWARE
I am pleased with the product, and very glad the low-end OCR software worked better than I feared--as I will have no problem upgrading that software to a professional level for a hundred dollars or so--within my budget. For now, from the text, even requiring more editing than I will want to do, it was, none-the-less, very readable. Our eyes and minds will see thnouglre the eniors and quickly correct as we read! The actual density of errors was reasonable for a starter version which is what is included. Og course the OCR software has nothing to do with the perfect image of the pdf file--it only impacts searching that pdf file for specific words and phrases. I will add that the ability to search a text using Acrobat that I already have is the same as the scanned images on many of the research sites I use. I want the search ability for indexing and hyperlinking within the final pdf file. I am told that Adobe's product will supply that ability and the high OCR accuracy that I need.
OVERALL
There are more features, other software included, but for my purposes... my expectations were far exceeded by what was delivered--a delight to have such easy and quick success. My two unknowns are 1) results of my upgrade to more powerful OCR software, and 2) the longevity of the scanner unit.
I do wish the software would allow me to name the current scan more easily. The default is to use serial ordinals, so that my scanning project folder is merely img001.jpg, img002.jpg, and so on. This leads me to...
SPEED
Speed is an afterthought to me. I have only used this product on my laptop (I needed a portable scanner, and this and my laptop will easily fit together in my backpacking trips to the library). It is a four year old lap top as of this writing (summer 2009) which is just a bit slow by this year's standards. I found myself, feeding the scanner with a new original, pressing scan, and then going to the Window Explorer window to change the default name of the last scan to something descriptive, and finishing just as it was time to feed the scanner again. In other words, if the process of scanning and saving was any faster then the machine would be waiting on me; I rarely waited on it (except when using OCR--that takes a few more seconds per page.
POSITIVES
Out of the box, excellent and rewarding results far exceeding expectations.
The inclusion of a starter OCR product was very helpful, although ultimately insufficient for my needs--just as both vendors (Epson and ABBYY) knew they would be--the low-end software just to give the buyer a taste.
Intuitive hardware and software controls
Resolution capability beyond anything I could ever find use for
Speed easily meeting my needs.
Size and weight make trips to archives with it and the laptop in my backpack possible and easy.
Primary (Epson) software functions well and quickly--providing almost everything I would expect
NEGATIVES
The menu "mode" names are odd and inappropriate.
Some of the terms on the menus are also unusual compared to what I am used to in photo-editing software.
Not "plug and play," you must install the software from the supplied CD.
No hard copy user manual (but I was the only one who ever read them anyway)
No ability to custom name each scan file on the fly (no "save file as" pop-up window).
Buy it, you'll love it. If it lasts a long time, I may even name it. Epson Perfection V300 Photo Color Scanner (Black) - Negative Scanner - Slide Scanner - Scanner - Epson V300'
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