Buying a Scanner

I'm getting to the point where I need a scanner for my B&W prints. There's only one shop near here that does printing and scanning, and the only store that sells any film and paper. I called them today, asking a price for scanning an 8x10 B&W print to a thumb drive, and perhaps the clerk misunderstood my question, but the quote was $5.50 per print! I haven't researched this much, but that seems outrageous.

So I'm looking at an Epson Perfection 600, reasonable price I think, and once downloaded to the computer my only editing options are iPhoto and Google Photos, so it won't be a professional set-up I'm certain.

Has anyone any thoughts or experience with this, or can suggest a similar competitive model?

Thanks!

The v600 is a solid choice for this type of scanning, and reasonably priced.

The (much) more expensive flatbeds, like V700 and up, don't offer significant improvement when scanning prints. Instead, the extra money buys improved performance in the subsystem dedicated to scanning film negatives and transparencies.

The v600 is a solid choice for this type of scanning, and reasonably priced.

 

The (much) more expensive flatbeds, like V700 and up, don't offer significant improvement when scanning prints. Instead, the extra money buys improved performance in the subsystem dedicated to scanning film negatives and transparencies.

Thanks orsetto! I'd hoped I'd get a positive on this model, since depending on the sales company's 'reviews' are often dodgy, and there are few others at that level. I hadn't thought much about scanning negatives though, having discovered that an iPad does pretty well for viewing, but the advantage of organizing in titled categories would make sense.

Thanks again -

For editing after scanning, there are plenty of free software options, GIMP and darktable to name just two.

Thanks steve! I've downloaded GIMP, but still struggling with it all. I think some more time in front of it will help and I intend to do that.

The majority of people who whine negatively in scanner reviews boil down to two primary groups: computer-illiterate folks who can't grasp the innate tendency of Windows and Mac to blow chunks with every piece of new driver code, and those with hopelessly unrealistic quality expectations from a "cheap" flatbed used for film scanning. Everyone else should be fairly satisfied with something like the v600: its middle-of-the pack in every respect, from price to performance, and as you noted its not like theres much choice left in new dedicated scanners. Wait for the sales starting up any minute now this time of year, and its an even better deal. Tons of available used in mint condition for even less.

The driver conflict issues come up most often if you try to use a scanner with computer operating systems that are significantly older or newer than when the scanner model was introduced. Windows 10 was a maelstrom of problems thru its many public beta stages, but should be fairly stable now. MacOS has been a trainwreck of late: Apple has been steadily gutting it of backwards compatibility for the past few years. This may or may not lead to intractable driver issues with some products: depends if the OS-initiated auto-driver-download has compatible versions in its library. Epson is usually pretty good about updating software: the current Win10 is complete, while MacOS 10.15 is still a bit shaky (10.14 is OK), older Win7 and Mac 10.9 seem good to go.

The v600 can do direct scans from film, which may or may not give better results than scanning prints. If you do your own BW analog printing and retouching, the prints might be a better source, if you do your retouching and printing digitally, the negs might be a better starting point. Print scanning is fairly easy to get good consistent results from, film scanning is a black art requiring lots of practice. Flatbeds have inherent limitations with film: an expert operator can wring way better results than a novice. Most average users get quality good enough for web posting and electronic display, getting excellent printable quality can be more difficult (which justifies upmarket models like v700, or the pricey dedicated film-only scanners). You might want to bookmark the recent ongoing thread re current film scanning options: there are some good suggestions near the end on how to use your DSLR or mirrorless camera with a macro lens to obtain better "scans" from film than most scanner can offer.

Negative scanning

I have a V600 and have done a lot of film scanning, both 35mm and 120 medium format film. You can see samples on my FLickr page. (By the wway it's the V600 Perfection not 600 Perfection)

Alan Klein’s albums | Flickr

The V600 also does a fine job with photo prints. There's a restorative button that will correct faded colors. Also, the unit has settings to eliminate cracks and tears on the print to a large extent without further input on your part.

Epson has a V600 refurbished unit for $145 about 1/3 off regular price. It comes with a warranty. Check out the details.

Epson Perfection V600 Photo Scanner - Refurbished | Scanners | Clearance Center | Epson US

The majority of people who whine negatively in scanner reviews boil down to two primary groups: computer-illiterate folks who can't grasp the innate tendency of Windows and Mac to blow chunks with every piece of new driver code, and those with hopelessly unrealistic quality expectations from a "cheap" flatbed used for film scanning. Everyone else should be fairly satisfied with something like the v600: its middle-of-the pack in every respect, from price to performance, and as you noted its not like theres much choice left in new dedicated scanners. Wait for the sales starting up any minute now this time of year, and its an even better deal. Tons of available used in mint condition for even less.

 

The driver conflict issues come up most often if you try to use a scanner with computer operating systems that are significantly older or newer than when the scanner model was introduced. Windows 10 was a maelstrom of problems thru its many public beta stages, but should be fairly stable now. MacOS has been a trainwreck of late: Apple has been steadily gutting it of backwards compatibility for the past few years. This may or may not lead to intractable driver issues with some products: depends if the OS-initiated auto-driver-download has compatible versions in its library. Epson is usually pretty good about updating software: the current Win10 is complete, while MacOS 10.15 is still a bit shaky (10.14 is OK), older Win7 and Mac 10.9 seem good to go.

 

The v600 can do direct scans from film, which may or may not give better results than scanning prints. If you do your own BW analog printing and retouching, the prints might be a better source, if you do your retouching and printing digitally, the negs might be a better starting point. Print scanning is fairly easy to get good consistent results from, film scanning is a black art requiring lots of practice. Flatbeds have inherent limitations with film: an expert operator can wring way better results than a novice. Most average users get quality good enough for web posting and electronic display, getting excellent printable quality can be more difficult (which justifies upmarket models like v700, or the pricey dedicated film-only scanners). You might want to bookmark the recent ongoing thread re current film scanning options: there are some good suggestions near the end on how to use your DSLR or mirrorless camera with a macro lens to obtain better "scans" from film than most scanner can offer.

 

Negative scanning

Thanks orsetto - I'm on an older Mac, osx 10.11.6, which should be within acceptable age range for most accessories.

When I stated processing B&W after some decades, I began as a purist, dismissing all 'post' work as cheating, but now that I've done a bit of it, I don't see it as simply a fix for a poor print. And from what you saying here it appears that practice will deliver improved results.

Yes I'm certain that a good DSLR or mirrorless camera with those incredible optics would provide better scanning results, provided some type of mount were employed. But at least with this Epson I won't be bending over a print with an iPhone.

I have a V600 and have done a lot of film scanning, both 35mm and 120 medium format film. You can see samples on my FLickr page. (By the wway it's the V600 Perfection not 600 Perfection)

Alan Klein’s albums | Flickr

 

The V600 also does a fine job with photo prints. There's a restorative button that will correct faded colors. Also, the unit has settings to eliminate cracks and tears on the print to a large extent without further input on your part.

 

Epson has a V600 refurbished unit for $145 about 1/3 off regular price. It comes with a warranty. Check out the details.

Epson Perfection V600 Photo Scanner - Refurbished | Scanners | Clearance Center | Epson US

Thanks Alan, dang I should have checked their site first. I did get an Epson refurb though from Adorama at $159, so not too bad.

Great to get another vote on this scanner, really looking forward to it!

You can use nearly any flatbed scanner for prints, either B&W or color. You do not need an expensive light source in the cover for film and transparencies. I'm using an Epson V39 Perfection at my desk as we speak, which cost less than $100. I take scanning pretty seriously, and have more capable scanners, but the V39 meets my needs for documents, photos and program covers. A lot of the difference between scanners is software, and Epson is consistently the easiest to use and most flexible in that regard.

Prints have a very limited dynamic range (about 6 stops) and color space, easily within the capability of inexpensive scanners. The nearly insurmountable problems is scanning textured prints, particularly the traditional "silk" surface papers. Wrinkled glossy prints an also be a problem. The solution is to use conventional camera-based copy techniques, with appropriate lighting and polarization.

I can even calibrate this instrument, by scanning a Gretag-MacBeth color card and analyzing the results with X-Rite software or Silverfast. The profile can be applied (assigned) in Photoshop, then converted to a conventional color space. Silverfast lets you use the profile directly, but Epson software is not that sophisticated.

I don't bother with scanners for film and slides. It's easier and faster to do that with a digital camera.

The Epson Perfection V600 arrived today, and so far a complete disaster. I lashed it up correctly to my Macbook Pro, per instructions, downloaded the CD, but ended up with the spinning Beach Ball and no control ability.

I then downloaded several correct drivers from Epson, which resulted in the Epson now showing under printer/scanners in Preferences. I can scan a doc or pic now through this rudimentary method, but when clicking on any of the Epson control icons I get a flag up saying the 'scanner is not connected'. Clearly a communication issue here.

All this driver downloading finally tickled Apple into offering a 'current' Epson driver through Software Updates, which had no effect after installing it. Google offers up many similar Epson issues but no miracle fixes or anything I haven't already tried.

I'd love a fresh idea here, but history tells me that when accessories don't work, they won't work - ever.

Thanks -

Thanks Alan, I checked the Epson page this morning and re-downloaded all drivers and utilities shown relevant to my Mac osx, and will test it again. I can't find anything regarding the age of my osx, or other 'rule-out' issues that would have this result.

Lol I'm guessing I'll be checking on their return policy though later this morning!

You can use nearly any flatbed scanner for prints, either B&W or color. You do not need an expensive light source in the cover for film and transparencies<...>

Prints have a very limited dynamic range (about 6 stops) and color space, easily within the capability of inexpensive scanners. The nearly insurmountable problems is scanning textured prints, particularly the traditional "silk" surface papers. Wrinkled glossy prints an also be a problem. The solution is to use conventional camera-based copy techniques, with appropriate lighting and polarization

I second this. Almost every modern flatbed scanner is ok for scanning prints. No modern flatbeds is ok for scanning film.

The Epson v600 is about as good a flatbed as you're going to find in its price range, and is a popular standard. Don't give up on it until you've exhausted all possible software solutions. The scanner itself is unlikely to be defective: its probably just MacOS playing its usual sadistic games (every "upgrade" after 10.6 Snow Leopard has been an utter cluster ***, with El Capitan being particularly noxious).

Did you apply the special "Epson Scan Patch For OSX 10.11" update? This critical bit of software doesn't always turn up on every local regional Epson website. It is currently available on Epson Europe site via this download link. You need to download the .dmg file, open it, and double-click the installer. Restart your Mac, and see if Epson Scan recognizes the scanner. If not:

• On your Mac, open Image Capture, then select File >Reset TWAIN devices.
  

• Close Image Capture.
  

• Restart your Mac.
  

• Open Epson Scan and it should ask you if you would like to use it with Image Capture or with Epson Scan.
  

• Choose Epson Scan and things should work, if not go back and choose Image Capture instead.
  

Thanks orsetto, yes I did try 'reset twain devices' and chose Epson, and initially chose 'Use Twain' as the Epson first offer at start-up. And yes, that scan patch update for this El Capitan os really caught my eye, and was one of perhaps 6 dmg's I downloaded. But it got to the point where I was constantly fighting the 'scanner not connected' flag, and that was impossible to determine whether that addressed a lack of electrical hand shake or a deeper software issue generated in my setup sequence.

Long story short, UPS accepted it this morning for return, I'm certain they're excellent machines and would have enjoyed using it, but two failure sessions of hours each convinced me I'd got a bummer. It was a refurb after all, which might explain it.

Thanks again for your time orsetto!

Sounds like the company's 'refurb' procedure went something like:

"Ah, yep, all the bits are in the box. Wipe the glass, slap some of that green tape across the lid and let's go for coffee. I already gave the connectors and cable a quick glance and they look just fine to me. Cappucino or Flat white?"

I second this. Almost every modern flatbed scanner is ok for scanning prints. No modern flatbeds is ok for scanning film.

Flatbeds should still be fine for larger negatives, depending on quality needs.

For 35mm, I prefer a scanner dedicated to 35mm film.

I'm getting to the point where I need a scanner for my B&W prints. There's only one shop near here that does printing and scanning, and the only store that sells any film and paper. I called them today, asking a price for scanning an 8x10 B&W print to a thumb drive, and perhaps the clerk misunderstood my question, but the quote was $5.50 per print! I haven't researched this much, but that seems outrageous.

 

(snip)

Scanning has a fair amount of labor, so is more costly than you might expect.

There might be a quantity discount, as there are setup costs.

If you only have one print to scan, $5.50 is less than the cost of most scanners.

" No modern flatbeds is ok for scanning film"

Not necessarily true. Depends on what size film and your purpose. If what you want is scans to facilitate viewing on a screen - whether on a website or to contribute to Photo.net for example, a consumer flatbed is capable of producing decent results . Prints from 35mm is a different story and you're not going to get a print -worthy file much bigger than a proof print. From MF though the horizon goes up- I'm quite happy with a flatbed scan to provide images for my Blurb books, up to 12" sq. And with prints up to that size too. Not saying a budget flatbed is the very best option, but that given the ability to use the scanner well, and some skills in post to reflect the fact that few scans are usable direct from a scanner, then you can get decent results. And back when I used to get BW prints made by a lab, most often the brief they got was a scanned MF neg adjusted by me to show what I'd want my prints to look like.

So not perfect, some limitations, very disappointing when you use them for something they aren't good at. But not useless.

My condolence on all IOS related problems.

I suppose if I wanted to operate a scanner; I'd be willing to pair it with whatever computer it requires, hoping another less than 200€/$ would buy me something (not necessarily great just good enough for that task.

bending over a print with an iPhone

AFAIK this thread is about digitizing 8x10" prints without any intention to blow them up further, by utilizing the gained file.

Flatbeds should still be fine for larger negatives, depending on quality needs.

For 35mm, I prefer a scanner dedicated to 35mm film.

All "consumer" flatbeds uses a lot of mirrors and flat glass in the way of light form film to sensor. So, it's like using mirror lens and cheap UV filter at same time. And no "professional" flatbeds (where is possible to use less mirrors due to less strict size limitations and not so wide-angle closed-aperture diffraction-suffering lenses), like Scitex Eversmart of Fuji Lanovia, is produced now. It`s easy to compare scan on flatbed and DSLR shoot of same transparency original. Results is really different.

" No modern flatbeds is ok for scanning film"

 

Not necessarily true. Depends on what size film and your purpose <...> not useless.

Definietly, not useless. But not ok )

AFAIK this thread is about digitizing 8x10" prints without any intention to blow them up further, by utilizing the gained file.

For reflecting materials and no enlargement nearly any flatbed scanner will be good tool.

All "consumer" flatbeds uses a lot of mirrors and flat glass in the way of light form film to sensor. So, it's like using mirror lens and cheap UV filter at same time. And no "professional" flatbeds (where is possible to use less mirrors due to less strict size limitations and not so wide-angle closed-aperture diffraction-suffering lenses), like Scitex Eversmart of Fuji Lanovia, is produced now. It`s easy to compare scan on flatbed and DSLR shoot of same transparency original. Results is really different.

Even without the mirrors, the optical path has to be long enough to image the whole width.

And then a 35mm image uses only a tiny part of the (hopefully) line sensor.

Cheaper negative/slide scanners use cellphone style 2D imaging sensors.

Dedicated 35mm scanners use shorter focal length lenses and image the full width of the sensor.

I don't have any fancy medium format cameras, though, so flatbeds are fine, such as

for the negatives from the Brownie 2F that I used last summer, or VP116 in

a Kodak Autographic Jr. 1A.