- Create extraordinary enlargements from film
- Remove the appearance of dust and scratches from fi lm
- Remove the appearance of tears and creases from photos
- Restore faded color photos with one touch
- Scan slides, negatives and medium-format panoramic fi lm
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.
Buy Epson B11B198011 Perfection V600 Photo Scanner Now
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....
Read Best Reviews of Epson B11B198011 Perfection V600 Photo Scanner Here
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.
Want Epson B11B198011 Perfection V600 Photo Scanner Discount?
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
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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.
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