This is Part 2 of my review of the Epson FastFoto FF-680W Wireless High-speed Photo Scanning System - other parts are here: Part 1
After testing with a small batch of black-and-white photos, I decided to scan 111 color photos from the period of 1967 through 1994. These were all photos that included my three stepchildren, Kim, Noël, and Drew. They had been in photo albums I'd put together for their late dad, and I decided it's time to pass the photos on to them.
Trouble is - in photos that have more than one of them - who gets the original? So that's why I decided to scan them - so I can share them with them in Google Photos, and see who wants what.
The photos were in nine different sizes, ranging from as small as 2.25" by 2.25" and 2.5" by 2.5", to a few that were 4" by 6" and 5" by 7". There were also some Polaroids from 1970 which, because of their thickness and stiffness, needed to be scanned one at a time.
However, you CAN scan multiple sizes at one time, up to 36 at a time, as long as they are at least 2" by 2", and grouped by size with the smallest in front and the with the largest at the back. The photos should be face up, in landscape orientation and top edge first, and centered in relation to each other.
So, I kept my photos in mostly chronological order, and scanned them in small batches mostly defined by the smallest photos. I did, however, have one batch that consisted of 41 photos. They all came out fine.
I set the scanner to scan the photos at 300 dpi and produce JPEGs, and to scan the backs if printing/handwriting was detectable (light setting). I also set the scanner to do auto enhancements, remove red eye, and restore faded colors, and to apply these enhancements to a second copy of the photo, and not to the original scan. I also turned on auto rotation, curled photo correction, and reduce lines and streaks in the advanced settings. (See Part 1 for a discussion of these various settings.)
Here is a photo of the scanner in action, plus some examples of the results, with my comments. In all of the examples, the first image is the original scan, the second is a copy of that scan with enhancements (auto brightness, contrast, and saturation; remove red eye; and restore faded colors) applied, and the third image is the back of the photo:
Above: At 300 dpi, the scanner is very fast - note the blurred photo exiting at the bottom.
Below: The auto-rotate setting did properly turn this photo, which was fed in landscape orientation.
Above: The auto-rotate setting didn't turn this photo - but that's ok, it's an easy fix.
Below: All the enhancement settings were turned on for this batch, and it (the middle image) turned out well.
In these photos, from 1991 (above) and 1970 (below), the enhancements (middle images) got the whites a little brighter than I like, so I would work on enhancing the original images (on the left) with other tools.
Above: This is the oldest photo I scanned in this batch, from 1967. I think the enhancements feature did an outstanding job on this one.
Below: One of the Polaroids I scanned. In this case, the enhancements (middle image) made it too dark, so I will work with the original on the left.
Above: The enhancements feature got the whites in the foreground a little brighter than I like, but I'm not sure I could do any better than this with the original, with the tools I have available.
Below: And the enhanced image below is also off on color, but again, I don't think I could do much better. Note that the scan of the back indicates the print was processed in October 1974, so we know the photo was taken in or before that month. That's all the info I have on this photo; I don't know two of the girls in it, or where it was taken.
All in all, I'm very pleased with how the Epson FastFoto FF-680W handled these color snapshots - and by how fast it was.
You can use the Epson FastFoto FF-680W to scan things other than photos. More on that in the next post in this series.
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