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.... Epson Perfection v600 Photo Color Scanner (B11B198011)
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. - Film Scanner - Photo Scanner - Negative Scanner - Slide Scanner'
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