Epson Perfection V600 Review

Epson Perfection V600The Epson Perfection V600 photo scanner does an outstanding job of scanning both slides and film, right up there with the Canoscan 9000F, among scanners targeted to the advanced amateur/semi-pro photographer category. The difference between the V600 and the V500 is that this scanner does a better job of handling medium format film. Note to Lomography and Holga camera fans: if you will be scanning any 645 or 6×7 (also known as 120/240) negatives, this is the scanner to get, as the included plastic adapter templates will allow you to scan twice as many negatives at once.

The other difference from the V500 is that the Digital ICE correction software works on slides and film, i.e. transparency media, as well as on reflective media (papers, books, etc.). Epson is second to none in driver support for their line of scanners, also, so whether you use the latest Mac OS or Windows 7, they have you covered.

With optical resolution of 6400 X 9600dpi, Dmax 3.4, and 48-bit color, it does a superb job of delivering crisp clean scans of slides and black and white negatives. This compares to the Canoscan 9000F’s resolution of 9600 X 9600dpi. What do these figures mean?

Resolution and Sharpness

Epson Perfection V600Resolution measures the amount of information captured, and relates to the ability of an image to be enlarged. When you see a scanner advertised as having resolution of 1200 X 1200, for example, the first number represents the horizontal pixels captured by the scanners CCD sensors as they move across the image. The second number is the vertical scanning rate, as determined by the speed the stepper motor moves the sensors vertically, and does not really relate to the image quality.

To make matters more complicated, the actual sharpness of the image quality captured depends primarily on the quality of the optics the scanner’s lens is constructed of, as well as the intensity of the light source. The resolution affects more the ability to enlarge images, and the higher the resolution, the larger the image can be enlarged without sacrificing fine detail. A 3,200 dpi scan from a 35mm color negative, with Digital Ice could be printed at 11” X 13” and look at least as good as the same size print produced by a photo lab.

Getting back to the Epson Perfection V600, here are some of it’s great Features-

The included Epson Scan software has 4 levels of user involvedness. From Full Auto Mode for the ‘Point and Shoot’ type user, to Professional Mode for a more advanced user. If you will be using this scanner to scan color negatives, you may want to download and use Hamrick Software’s VueScan, rather than the included Epson software. VueScan has a wider range of film emulsion profile settings that can give more accurate color balance to your scans, as well as many other helpful functions such as calibration of targets.

What comes included/in the box?

Here is one owner’s comments on the Epson Perfection V600:

I am very happy with the 35mm slide scans I am getting with the Full Auto Mode and 300 dpi setting. It is more than adequate for my needs to digitize my slide collection. It is very easy to load and scan slides. You lay a template on the bed which has guides to get it in the right place and drop up to 4 slides in the open squares in the guide. It takes about 2.6 minutes to scan 4 slides with the settings above. Yes it will take time to scan a lot of slides, but I am willing to take the time because of the results.  -S. Hamilton Excepted for size- Click Here to read original review

Buy the Epson V600 at Amazon

December 19, 2010 | Filed Under Photo Scanners

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