Epson is looking to reinforce its position as the only choice for professional photo scanning with the Perfection V700 Photo (reviewed here) and Perfection V750 Pro. The two scanners sit at the top of Epson’s flatbed scanner range. The Perfection V750 Pro (£550) is pitched at professional photographers while the Perfection V700 Photo (£339) is suitable for the photo enthusiast or advanced amateur photographer.

Both scanners are identical, except the Perfection V750 Pro is designed for those that require advanced film scanning capability to rival that of a dedicated film scanner. It features a high-pass optics system to improve scanning speed and quality. Each unit comes with Hi-Speed USB 2.0 and IEEE 1394 (FireWire) connectivity ports.

What’s particularly interesting about the units is that they are the world’s first flatbed scanners at less than £550 to offer an optical (no software jiggery pokery) resolution of up to 6400x9600ppi (37760x62336 pixels). They also incorporate an innovative Dual Lens System and Digital Ice Technologies, and have a 4.0-DMax optical density.

The Dual Lens System features a super resolution lens offering up to 6400ppi film scanning (up to 5.9-inch width) and a high resolution lens offering up to 4800ppi (40800x56160-pixel) reflective scanning and film scanning (over 5.9-inch width). By comparison, most dedicated film scanners have optical resolutions of 2400- or 3600ppi. Using two lenses instead of one single lens, Epson has been able to incorporate high resolution scanning in a relatively cost effective unit, without increasing the A4 footprint or compromising on quality.

The Perfection V700 Photo (308x503x153, 6.6kg) features a large scanning area reaching up to 8x10-inches (203x254mm) and comes with four film holders that support 35mm film strips and slides, medium and large format film. If that’s not enough, Epson’s Digital ICE Technologies is an impressive software and hardware combo that automatically remove dust, scratches, dirt and fingerprints from film and photos to create a crisp and clear final image.

Colour hardware bit depth is 48-bits per pixel internal and 48-bits per pixel external (external bit depth is selectable to 48 bits depending on the image editing software). Grayscale hardware bit depth is 16-bits per pixel internal and 16-bits per pixel external (external bit depth is selectable to 16 bits depending on the image editing software).

Those with heavy scan duties will the pleased with the Perfection V700 Photo’s ability to batch scan multiple originals. For example, you can insert four strips of 35mm films, twelve 35mm mounted slides, two 6x20cm (maximum) 120/220 frames and two 4x5-inch frames. An anti-reflection optical coating is applied to eliminate reflection and ghosting, helping to produce sharp and clear images, while a high reflection mirror improves the reflection of the scanned light to the sensor, resulting in faster scanning speeds.

In the box you get and 8x10-inch transparency unit (built into lid), four film holders (35mm negatives, 35mm slides, medium format and 4x5-inch), 8x10-inch Film Area Guide, Hi-Speed USB 2.0 cable, Epson Setup Sheet, and AC adapter/power cable). Epson’s not forgot about software either, bundling Adobe’s excellent but entry-level Photoshop Elements 3.0, SilverFast AI6 (Twain driver and plug-in for both Photoshop Elements 3.0) and Monaco EZcolor utilities.

Unfortunately, Epson has not included any optical character (OCR) software for scanning letters and other text-based material (US customers get Abbyy’s FineReader Sprint 8.0) and the unit’s document-management capabilities are basic considering the lack of an automatic document feeder (ADF) and indexing program.

The Perfection V700 Photo is the ideal scanner for the photo enthusiast or advanced amateur photographer, especially those with large print and film collections waiting to enter the digital age. Its ability to handle all common film formats and scan multiple images simultaneously makes it a highly versatile solution for digitising your film. And scanning is so easy - you insert media into the template on the platen then launch the scan from within a program or simply by pressing the single large button on the front of the unit.

You can then select from three scanning modes. For instance, ‘Automatic’ is the no-brainer choice which handles virtually all of the settings for you, while ‘Home’ offers a preview scan to let you tweak brightness, for example. For total control, ‘Professional’ lets you configure colour balance, saturation, tonal curve adjustments, and more.

The Perfection V700 Photo also offers relatively fast scanning speeds - as little as 50 seconds for 35mm film, 15 seconds for an A4 monochrome document, and just 22 second for a 4x6 photo at 300ppi (around 27 seconds at 400ppi). Image quality was also fantastic - among the best we’ve seen from a consumer scanner - with appropriate resolution and excellent dynamic range. If you take your photography seriously, the Perfection V700 Photo is the scanner you’ve been waiting for.

[9] - Editors’ Choice

[Best Scanner Pricing UK]
[Best Scanner Pricing US]

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BIOS, Mar 07, 06 | Print | Send | Comments (0) | Posted In Scanner