EPSON PERFECTIONV600 PHOTO COLOR SCANNER

User Reviews about Epson Perfection v600 Photo Color Scanner (B11B198011)

For 120/220 film negatives you might want to think about something else. Although I'm not sure what if you are on a budget. And that's how I wound up with this product. Decent price, and the scans look good off of negatives and transparencies. Now, here's the problem: The scanning mask for negatives is not sufficiently large to handle 6x6 cm negatives ("two and a quarter square")in strips of four. A fairly common way of filing these back in the old days that fit a 12-shot roll on to an 8x10 inch contact sheet.

Looks like 6x7 cm will fit okay in threes. A few scans of these look good although the default scanner settings breaks them up into oddly chopped image pieces. One day soon I'll have a look at the rest of the software controls and settings to see if there's a way to make what I'm doing the default.

Scans from slides and prints look good. Didn't scan any transparency film (Fujichrome, Kodachrome, and the like)in uncut strips.

I got more or less what I expected because my selection was limited by price. -- Probably Okay

Bought this for my wife and daughter to use. My wife is saving and repairing old family photos My daughter is a professional photographer with a home studio. I set it up and scanned the first photos. The first time I used it I took 3 or 4 try's messing around with the settings to see what they did to get a scan that I wanted. After that it was very easy. It works with windows xp and vista with out problems. It creates great scans and is faster than other photo scanners I have used. The ICE software works better than I expected, which can save considerable time when working with old photos. My only complaint is, why ship with last years photo shop elements when any one that uses elements regularly probably has upgraded any way. -- great scanner

I was forced to buy a new scanner because the Hewlett-Packard 5590 I was using self-destructed right after the warranty expired, and I received absolutely no consideration from HP. They charged me to do an online diagnostic, and told me the 5590 was not fixable. I had only given it very light use, too. So, I swore never to buy anything from HP again, and after checking everything out there, I bought the Epson Perfection V600, and I am pleased with it. My only complaint is that the documentation is rather limited, and you have to figure out certain functions intuitively. I have used scanners for many years, so that wasn't a problem for me. (I still have a perfectly good HP 2CX scanner which I updated when I connected it to an at the time new, but now old Windows 98 computer. It works fine but HP stopped updating the software for it to work with newer computers and newer versions of Windows). The setup for the Epson Perfection V600 is very simple--just plug it in, after first installing the software. I can't comment on its durability because it is new, and after my Hewlett-Packard experience, you can imagine my reluctance to commit to a durability rating on any product that is new. -- Nice Scanner

I was using an old Microtek scanner attached to a Mac OS 9 machine. The old scanner was dying and I had upgraded to OS X throughout the house. So, I thought it was time to upgrade the scanner as well. I bought this Epson scanner for the primary purpose of scanning text documents although the idea of scanning some of my photographs from years gone by was attactive as well. SO far, I've only used the scanner for text documents; it has worked flawlessly - super fast and nearly automatic. A push of a button on the scanner and a click of teh mouse and I have a document that is immediately useful. At this point, I give this machine the highest rating. Can't comment about photos yet. -- Sweet Machine

I ordered the Epson Perfection V600 Photo Scanner because I was trying to scan 60 years worth of family photos (negative film, slides and prints) using a Epson V500. The V500 was doing a really great job on the film and slides but a lot of the prints were in poor condition. The V600 claimed to have Digital Ice for Prints capability. The V500's Digital Ice for film worked very well at cleaning up scans from film and slides and I had hoped that the DI for prints would be just as good.

The DI for prints was the only disappointment about this scanner. All it does is smudge any tears or blemishes on the prints. In my opinion it just doesn't work.

The rest of the claims for this scanner are true. Scans are sharp and well exposed. Color restoration works amazingly well on faded originals. It also does a good job on old prints that have developed a yellow or magenta color cast. I am very happy with the image quality and the controls available with the Epson software.

Hardware and software installation was super simple. Run the software off the CD, download the upgrade from the Epson website and plug the scanner into the Mac (iMac 27" running Snow Leopard OSX) - the setup is complete. could not be simpler.

Operation is also very simple and easy. The Epson Scan software has 4 levels of complexity. All 4 levels are easily accessible at all times. Full Auto Mode is the 'Point and Shoot' level. Professional Mode would be more for the D-SLR type of person. If you like to complicate your life there are third party drivers that allow you to tweak and manage every aspect of the scan.

Scans without Digital Ice are really quick compared to scanners I've used in the past. Digital Ice really slows things down. Scanning 4 - 35mm slides @ 3,200dpi without DI takes 2 minutes with DI it takes 10 minutes. The software for the Mac runs in the background and does not seem to slow down either my iMac or my Powerbook. I can scan while I work on other things. Very convenient.

Despite the time it adds to the scans, Digital Ice is definitely worth using. The scans are instantly usable without and post-scan touch up in PhotoShop. The end result is a huge time saving.

Output

Spectacular! Scans from 35mm color negatives scanned at 3,200 dpi with Digital Ice can be printed at 11X13 and look as good or better then the same size print produced by the photo store without any additional work. If your a PhotoShop or Elements wiz the results only get better. Scans from prints are also very good but will probably require clean-up in PhotoShop or Elements before you print them.

The Bad

As I mentioned earlier Digital Ice for Prints does nothing useful. Digital Ice for Film works very well on color negative film and non-Kodachrome slides. If you have lot of B&W film or Kodachrome slides, you are going to have to clean them up manually. I understand there is a Kodachrome friendly version of Digital Ice but Epson does not include it with their software.

I recommend this scanner to anyone who wants to make quality scans with a minimum of fuss. The value for the money is very high. If you have a scanner that is 4 or 5 years old or older the upgrade is worth it. If you have an Epson V500, the V600 is not that big an improvement. -- Very good photo scanner