Best Scanners For Photos
Epson FastFoto FF-680W Wireless High-Speed Photo and Document Scanning System, Black
Best Scanners For Photos is very nice product. I have a top of the line flatbed scanner, and have been intending to scan years worth of family snapshots for ages. But it’s such a labour-intensive process, I’ve never done more than a handful. This FastFoto scanner is awesome. It’s fast, easy to operate, and produces great scans (with one caveat, see below).
The bundled software greatly simplifies the task, as it auto-names each scan file. You specify a title for a bunch of photos (6th Birthday Party, Kids Recital, etc) and provide the date. The date can be exact (1992-May, or 1992-May-12), seasonal (1995-Summer), or broad (2000). Then click the Blue button. In seconds, the stack of photos feeds through the scanner and you have a series of sequentially-numbered JPEGs saved in a named folder. You can have it add more scans to the folder if the collection of photos from a particular event are more than will go through the scanner in one pass (about 20).
My only gripe is that the scans all have a very slight bluish cast. I’ve searched for a ColorSync profile that might correct this, but haven’t found one. The Epson software includes an ‘auto-enhance’ option that does a pretty good job at removing it, but I’d rather the scans be colour-accurate to begin with.
Even with this minor flaw, I highly recommend the FastFoto scanner. With it, I might actually complete my family scanning project this year.
Promised Review by Peter Parker
