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Anybody born earlier than the arrival of the digital age probably has a giant field of household pictures sitting someplace of their dwelling; a relic of the times earlier than smartphones changed analog cameras and the cloud changed movie prints.
I, too, have such a field and have made numerous makes an attempt over time to digitize the pictures to allow them to be safely preserved and simply sorted in my Google Drive. Sadly, with out specialised gear, picture scanning is a time-consuming course of, and whereas telephone apps like Photomyne intention to make the method sooner, I’ve discovered the standard of the scans is commonly poor.
I wasn’t too bothered by my lack of progress on my picture scanning challenge till I got here throughout my 90-year-old grandmother’s trove of household pictures final summer time. Contained inside 5 enormous packing containers have been tens of 1000’s of images representing over a century of household historical past. Most of the pictures and albums had already been broken by basement flooding or pale with time, so it immediately grew to become crucial that I discover a strategy to shortly digitize this large cache of pictures so future generations may get pleasure from them.
Enter the Epson FastFoto (FF-680W), the one dwelling scanner in the marketplace that may batch-process as much as 35 pictures at a time, with scanning speeds as much as 80 pictures per minute. Total, I feel this is likely one of the finest and most economical options for anybody who has a variety of pictures to scan, however as soon as your challenge is full, chances are you’ll discover little use for it.
Epson FastFoto (FF-680W)
The FastFoto is likely one of the finest picture scanners in the marketplace, permitting you to batch-scan pictures at speeds of as much as two pictures per second. It is one of the vital cost-effective methods we have discovered to digitize massive volumes of picture prints.
An upright scanner that takes up little desk house
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The FastFoto appears like a shrunken-down model of a traditional printer and suits simply on a desk for simple entry. Make no mistake: The FastFoto solely scans and has no printing capabilities. And, this scanner is primarily designed for digitizing printed pictures with a most width and top of 8.5 inches by 11.7 inches.
You set the pictures into the scanner such as you would load paper right into a printer: there is a feeder with sliders to accommodate numerous image sizes. The pictures are pulled by the scanner and deposited within the touchdown tray. The entire unit has a canopy that protects the scanner from mud when not in use.
In contrast to a conventional flatbed scanner, the place you raise a canopy and scan every one after the other, the feeder system accelerates the method and makes photo-scanning and archiving extra handy.Â
Though the FastFoto resembles Epson’s different sheet-fed doc scanners, it is not designed for multi-page doc scanning. I’ve tried, however because it scans every web page as a person file, you are pressured to assemble the PDF manually.
Easy setup, controls, and connectivity
You will have two choices for connecting the FastFoto to your laptop: use the included USB-A or join through WiFi. Like many present laptops, my laptop has no USB-A slots, so I used WiFi. The scanner is outfitted to connect with WiFi through your router’s WPS button, which simplifies the wi-fi pairing. In case your router has no WPS button, you possibly can manually join your scanner to the community utilizing Epson’s scanning software program or smartphone app.
Lightning-fast, high-quality scans
Epson suggests that you simply arrange your pictures by dimension and orientation earlier than scanning. This was by far essentially the most time-consuming course of. I took it a step additional and in addition organized pictures by yr. The software program lets you set a date for every batch of pictures you scan. Whereas you do not have to make use of this characteristic, this step is vital when you plan on importing your scans into an app like Google Pictures and need to have your scanned pictures precisely organized by yr. Organizing my pictures this manner took about 4 hours for 1,800 pictures.
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As soon as I had my pictures organized, the precise strategy of scanning took barely an hour. I used to be shocked that in such a brief interval, I had tackled an enormous challenge that had daunted me for years. The one-hour scanning time included coping with a number of snags and re-scans (I will clarify a bit extra about that beneath), loading and unloading the pictures, and altering the date throughout the Epson software program for every new batch.Â
Throughout scanning, the software program deposits the pictures into folders in your laptop organized by yr. For every picture, the software program creates two to 3 recordsdata: an unique, an enhanced model, and a scan of the again of the picture if any pictures or textual content have been detected. This final characteristic was each a blessing and a curse: I cherished that it robotically preserved the hand-written notes on lots of my grandma’s pictures, however I additionally ended up with many pictures of clean picture backs as a result of the scanner had detected a brand on the picture paper generally used to print movie again within the analog days.Â
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Generally, I really most well-liked the improved model of the picture. I assumed the software program did a very good job of color-correcting and clarifying pictures so extra element was seen. Not one of the scans had glare, blur, or pixelation, that are points I’ve encountered with telephone scanning apps.Â
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Total, I assumed the scanner did an outstanding job scanning normal picture sizes: 4 x 6 and 5 x 7 inches. I encountered extra issue with atypical sizes, thicknesses, or supplies (like Polaroid pictures). Scanning these requires utilizing the FastFoto’s included service sheet. I assumed this sheet launched some coloration distortion and a ripple impact the place the transparency covers the picture. As soon as these pictures have been scanned, they needed to be manually cropped and rotated; a activity I discovered a bit tedious. Fortuitously, atypical pictures solely made up a small fraction of all the pictures I wanted to scan.
One other ache level was that a number of instances throughout scanning, the FastFoto stopped mid-scan, and I might get a spinning wheel on the software program display screen. When it was clear that the difficulty would not resolve by itself, I needed to drive give up the software program or restart the scanner. Each these actions precipitated me to lose each picture I had already scanned within the present batch — generally lots of of pictures. It additionally pressured me to retrieve the caught picture from the grip of the scanner belts, which ruined at the very least certainly one of my pictures. This inexplicable shutdown occurred thrice through the course of my challenge.Â
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Lastly, the purported integration with Google Pictures failed for me. Â I needed to add all my pictures to Google Pictures manually. Once more, this solely took a number of further steps, however is one other irritating glitch within the buggy and dated-feeling software program. I am no software program engineer, however I feel there may very well be huge enhancements to person expertise with only a few easy updates to the app.Â
Must you purchase the Epson FastFoto?
I am unable to deny that this scanner shortly loses its utility after finishing your challenge, which took just a few days for me. Since it could possibly’t print and is not excellent for doc scanning (my printer is extra user-friendly for scanning multi-page textual content paperwork), you principally simply have a cumbersome, dear digital with little use in your arms. You possibly can promote it or mortgage it out to family and friends, however on this digital age, there aren’t many circumstances the place you may accumulate a cache of analog pictures that want scanning sooner or later.Â
That stated, from my analysis, the options to the Epson FastFoto boil down to 3 choices: rent a service (dear), scan the pictures manually (time-consuming), or use a telephone app (low high quality). The going charge for skilled picture scanning is about $0.17 per picture, so I might say that you probably have greater than 3,000 pictures to scan, the price of the FastFoto is effectively justified. You will simply must plan for what to do with it when your challenge has wrapped.
The underside line
The Epson FastFoto is the best and quickest resolution I’ve discovered for digitizing previous pictures. It is a load off my shoulders to know that my treasured household reminiscences are preserved and backed up digitally in case something ever occurs to the originals. You probably have a big variety of pictures to scan, that is far and away the very best worth resolution, and one I extremely suggest for peace of thoughts in terms of preserving vital household mementos.Â
