Referencing this thread and the many that exist for scanners. I want to scan my photo albums, all the photos are from the 1970s-1980s (as of now) until I contact other family members.
I have been on the fence on which scanner to buy.
Does anyone have experience with the following?
Epson Fast Foto FF-680
ScanSnap iX2500 (I am confused on the difference between Premium and Photo Edition) Does the Premium not do Photo?
Epson Perfection V550
I have an M1 Mac Mini for reference with the latest OS.
The epson fast foto 680 is excellent. My wife and I have been scanning old family photos for the past few months using it and it has been just an excellent scanner. The quality of the images are sharp and it does a good job of helping you organize the photos into different folders if thatâs how you want to organize them. It is also super quick scanning piles of photos. The only complaint I have about it is that itâs recently was a little moody connecting to Wi-Fi but apart from that, itâs been rock solid.
I wound up using the Epson FastFoto FF-680W for an enormous project like this a couple years back, and it got the job done. I found it to be a good balance between quality and efficiency.
I personally donât recall experiencing any damage. Though if you have any super old, sensitive photos, you could always outsource those to a company like DiJiFi.
I used Dijfi to convert a big batch of home movies from the 50s and 60s to digital, and they did an excellent job. Iâd definitely consider using a reputable service for old and delicate items.
Itâs expensive, but worth it for genuinely irreplaceable treasures.
I use an Epson Perfection v600. Same base features as the v550 with an up-leveled version of Digital ICE dust removal. I bought it for book and fragile document scanning, and the occasional photo. Excellent machine.
Agree. Never had any damage to normal photos. For older photos that are fragile or damaged in any way, we would not feed those through the feeder and would scan them using an app - something like Google PhotoScan. On very rare occasion would we send to an outside service but for our purposes, using the Google App does the job for these types of pix.
I have a ScanSnap iX1600, the predecessor to the 2500 and find it works well enough for scanning pictures from photo albums. The different models of the 2500 have to do with accessories for receipts or carriers for photos, AFAIK the hardware is all the same.
Iâve used it to scan envelopes full of photos and the quality is good enough for most purposes.
I use the excellent Vuescan when I want more control than the built-in ScanSnap software.
In addition to feeding batches of same-size photos, it comes with a few carrier sheets in which you insert delicate photos or documents. This shields them from any contact with the feed rollers. The scanning path is straight enough that I have not experienced problems with unmounted photos.
The results are good enough for an online album or a picture book if not enlarged/cropped much. Use VueScan for higher-res scans and more control. (And Topaz Photo if you want to really see magic done to decades-old snapshots.)
I keep an older Canon Canoscan 8800f around for bigger or mounted photos. A 2008 model, it still gives good quality scans, improved by Topaz Photo when needed. Requires VueScan, no Canon drivers available, and I donât use it for negative scans. DSLR scanning for those.
A friend passed on a Czur Aura scanner, kind of an overhead camera that can shoot a whole page of a photo album with mounted pictures (and captions!). My model captures 14MB scans, which are fine for sharing the album pages with family.
Topaz again can do wonders if I want a couple of pictures from a page scaled up for larger printing. They have models with higher res cameras. Itâs also great for scanning booksâit can take both sides at a time, straighten and deskew, and OCR the results in several formats.
My mother left us over 40 photo albums with mounted and captioned photos. I can scan one with the Aura in 45 mins or less. Counting the time to get all the pages loose from the binding.
Pro tip for the ScanSnap: Get a photo pencil and write any info you have about the photo on the back. The ScanSnap will scan both sides, making two consecutive images. Makes iit easy in your photo editor to rename or add a caption as you scroll through.
I had been wanting a scanner for years but always balked at the prices. Last year I had a work anniversary and was gifted a large credit with our tech vendor. One of the items I chose was the iX2500. It had literally just been released and there wasnât a Photo Edition that I recall.
Itâs a great scanner - I used it to scan ~15 years worth of old tax documents and other stuff I probably donât need anyway. Took me a full weekend of scanning (I quickly learned I also needed to buy a shredderâŚ). While itâs a great scanner, be sure you actually need a scanner before investing in one. Theyâre pricey for what they do, take up space, etc. If you need to scan a large number of documents and/or scan a small number very frequently, then sure.
I did scan some photos with it and they worked well. I recall not really finding any âphotoâ selection/setting before scanning them. I donât know if it is a high quality photo scanner though.
Trying to scan a huge number of photos is going to require a scanner, be very repetitive, and be incredibly time consuming. If thatâs the primary use for a scanner, you may want to consider looking into the companies that provide photo scanning as a service. Factoring in cost and the value of your time, they can be a good deal.
If youâre looking for something for the occasional document, I seriously use Simple Scan on my iPhone. I just snap a photo. If your documents are small enough and infrequent enough, thatâs as easy as anything else.
Forget initial price. Buy what works (we used a Fujitsu ScanSnap, donât remember the model). Use it, scan everything. Then SELL IT - eBay in the U.S., not sure what works elsewhere. In the end, you have only ârentedâ the device.
We scanned thousands of photos and documents this way around 15 years ago.
Thirding this! I bought a pricey Epson Perfection scanner to scan in the professionally made transparencies of an artist relationâs entire catalogue on the theory that it would be cheaper than sending them off to a quality scanning service. But Iâve never been able to get a really good quality scan out of the thingânot because itâs a bad scanner, but because itâs a finicky and time consuming job. In retrospect, I should have gone with the pros, despite the cost.
