plustek ePhoto vs Epson FastFoto for scanning old snapshots

[@brooksm3552]

The software has been upgraded. It now does an excellent job with color and optimization.

[@natashac6036]

For Plustek?

[@joe_ninety_one5076]

The Plustek gives 50 choices of colour Gamut (ICC profile). Which is best?

[@mn55019]

thankyou for the update.

[@davidroskoph4392]

One of the Best comparison videos I have seen. I did opt for the Plustek but with more knowledge of its potential deficiencies. Thank you.

[@lloydchristmas4547]

This is very helpful. Thanks so much for the detailed comparisons. I want to send my photos to a store, but there's this huge fear they may lose my precious photos I'd never get back.

[@sreneilif]

I Agree but Disagree too! If I need 5 or 10 scans I would use my Canon Flatbed, but if I am throwing out all old paperhoto-albums, I definitely would use this one - picking out the favorite photos (for use on websites, Calendars or whatever). Mostly we just want to re-experience the past - and for that I really dont need neither to use 600 or more dollars or tons of hours. Again - It depends for what use the scans are for. I made about 3500-4000 scans in 2019 (just an estimate)mostly in 300dpi from all family photo-albums to get them digitized (Mostly for my Mum and the Mother-In-Law - and also my own and my wifes photos). And nomatter if some of the photos had bad colors, they really enjoyed watching all the memories on the TV! I would NEVER scan this amount on a Flatbed scanner! A few comments to your review: If you feed it too fast (In your video at about 10m30secs) it runs faster through and doesn't scan the photo. Just a user-issue ;o). In the beginning you tell about the "Apply Quick Fix". It seems it works better, when you scan older - yellowish not so bright photos. It helped me save a lot of time making my mother and mother-in-law and grandmother very happy with the "New Looking Photos. I think the software (still very simple) just helps people whos expectations are not too proffessional, and don't wanna sit with Photoshop or likewise for every paperphoto. I liked saving time, but still when I found photos of my own interest, I ofcourse scanned in TIFF without Quick-Fix and edited them myself. Also you didnt show that you can only scan (50 at a time I think), but also after you scanned them into the viewer, you can edit the placement of the scan in the series - fx scan number 3 was bad (Mostly red Stripes if a minor Dust-Corn get dragged with the Photo, and you rescan it as number 48. You can still drag it to position 3 and delete the first bad scan. The files will first get named when you choose to save the imported pictures. Also to have in mind is that depending of the photoseries Paperquality (AGFA, FUJI, KODAK) whatever paper was used at development, you can very fast click the same fixchoices to begin with, when you found the best choice (still maybe not as good as in photoshop or likewise, but they all look a like - just like the paperphotos also look different from development quality. Btw I sit in Germany and just about 15 km from the european headoffice, which was good, as I had a Bad-Handled delivery over Amazon. (Box damaged, but I descided to get a new one in case of internal damage). I called them and agreed to make the formalia paperwork over amazon, and with those printouts I could drive to them and got a new one right away - Super Service!!! All in all, I dare to say that for the lesser amount of cost, most people will be satisfied. But ppl have to keep it dustfree!!! The scanner is very sensitive to dust, and there is no Dust-Correction in the scan-procedure! I use a normal brush which I can press to blow a little wind and works mostly fine. And also the scan glass is easy to clean. I miss a demonstration of that too in your video. I also have a Canon Flatbed and an Epson, but even though Canon has the Auto-Crop- function it is way too lame and slow, scanning large numbers of old paperphotos. I agree with you, that you can get a nicer scan with a lot more time using a flatbed - But also disagree with you about the Time spent when scanning, because the most old photos will have to be reedited anyway after the Flatbed scan - but then ofcource I also can scan in 600 and 1200 dpi and rescale downwards. But for the masses, I surely love this one as a low-budget scanner for postcards, Smaller Paperphotos and recipees... I am excited to see if they make improvements though to both software and maybe also resolution - I whish they would do that soon - the scanner is now more than 4 years on the market... The Dias- and Negative-Scanner "Plus-Version" has Dustcorrection btw!

[@tonyjev]

Love Wayne's easy narration style with no um's. Find his videos very intormative and just bought the Epson after watching his videos. Epson -he is KOL so make sure u send him products to review.

[@cwaynefox]

Thanks for the kind words.

[@salvatorepapadello4450]

That’s the comparison I was looking for! Thank you 😊 I will take the epson!

[@cwaynefox]

Glad it was helpful!

[@deirdreryan7402]

Pro photographer here. I JUST bought this LOL My budget is super tight. My past is working with high quality drum scans and retouching. I had used to have great Epson Perfection 1640SU Photo but it was a SCSI so I sadly had to recycle it. I loved it because the negs scanned in the middle of the glass which is the “sweet spot” for flatbeds. Also it scanned up to 4x5. I currently have an Epson 400 series copy/printer/scanner and it’s ok. Slow is molasses on a winters day though LOL We’ll see how this cheap scanner works for family snapshots.

[@leozz8074]

How did it end up working for you?

[@colinwise8044]

Thanks for this comparison. Having bought the Z300 before seeing your review I agree with your observations about the software. It can be quite time consuming and unsatisfactory for editing and, in my view, is also a little unintuitive when it comes to filing. However, as you report, the output is quite close to the original so if all of your photos are satisfactory and don't need editing then you should be happy with the Z300. If lots of photos are of poor quality then a reasonable solution might be to leave them all unedited, and maybe scanned in a lossless format, and use one of a range of batch editing apps on the market to post-process them in one go; many are free. Or if you already have a high end paid-for photo editor like Photoshop you can use its batch editing capability. These solutions may very well perform auto-enhancement as well as the Epson software. You then end up with a set of faithful reproductions and a set of batch enhanced images, in the same way as one of the Epson options and only a little more time-consuming.

[@JedisParadisecom]

I would recommend turning off 'Apply Quick Fix' in the settings, then it looks more like the original. I do own this and an Epson flatbed scanner. I find this way easier to use, but as you say if you want to fix colours etc. then this could do it (manually), but other software is better. Also I choose resolution 600 and this will slow the scans. Another benefit of this (apart from the price) is that it doesn't take up much room.

[@cwaynefox]

I just feel that unless you are only scanning thinks that haven't faded or have other issues, this scanner will be too much work, requiring almost everything to be fixed after scanning. Sure handy, but I'll stick to the Epson.

[@MySneakers1]

Thanks very much for the excellent review! I came here to find out if I could get away with buying the Plustek rather than the Epson with the price point being what it is. I’ll definitely go for the Epson.

[@tomn8tr]

Nice comparison, I went with the Epson. Over 22,000 photos so far.

[@fcoy2]

While I agree that the Epson likely does a better job, for the money I've been pretty happy with the Plustek to scan in lots of documents quickly. Granted, I do all of my color correction in Photoshop and either do that manually or use a "batch" script I've saved. But that typically only applies to critical photos, for most documents it does an acceptable job. Good review though, and I completely agree that the software looks very dated and process to save the files is unnecessarily cumbersome. You got a thumbs up from me!

[@phillipketron9632]

FYI, at video time mark 6:27, 16-33 equals military time...1633 is the same as 4:33 PM, reads as "sixteen thirty three hours". Look at the upper right corner of your video, the computer time reads Tue 4:37 PM. Hope that helps. Love the videos. Thinking Epson FastFoto FF-680W, may resell on Ebay after my family collection is complete. Have about 2500 pics to scan.

[@cwaynefox]

I thought about that possibility after I posted the video. Yes, it's the time. Good catch. Good luck with your scanning job.

[@nikolaos-paximadakis]

Great video! What was the setting for the DPI, for the Plustek? I have read on the internet, that the scanning speed for 300 DPI is 2 seconds (like the one you demonstrated at the video), but for 600 dp is 24 seconds! Is it true?

[@dannyfannyfoodle]

Great video. Incredibly helpful. Thank you!

[@cwaynefox]

glad it helped

[@Ukhou]

Thanks a lot Wayne for the comparison

[@denisegrady556]

This is a good comparison. I am concerned about using the Epson ff 680 for snapshots removed from a “Magnetic “ self stick photo albums due to double sided scanning. I have the Plustek z300 and have scanned about 400 of perhaps 5000 plus of my Mom’s old snapshots and grandmothers portraits and snaps. My brother is sending me an Epson ff680 to help speed up the process, but I worry that the remaining “adhesive “ will scratch the back scan window. Thoughts? Thanks in advance.

[@rogerf3622]

Great informative video. Thx.

[@dougdevoz6611]

Hi Wayne, I noticed you ran a B&W of your wife through but I don't think you commented on the quality of the scan. I have a couple hundred or so of black and white photos of old family dating from about 1880's through to the 1960's in various sizes. A lot of 5 1/2 & 3 1/2 inches, typical of the '20's, '30's & '40's. Can the Plustek Z300 process these ok when inserting and would you rate the Epson FastFoto better when it comes to B&W with processing of various small sizes. I am sure the Epson does the back as well.as most of these old photos have valuable info written on the back. Again maybe the software for enhancing might come into play but would like to keep them original if possible. Excellent comparison and thanks.

[@cwaynefox]

I don’t think the difference between the two in quality will be nearly as apparent with black and white, since the main advantage of the epson is the color restoration of their software which isn’t being used when scanning black and white. I can’t say for sure but I think the ePhoto would be fine for those. It’s also OK for people that are scanning color objects that aren’t faded and you want an accurate scan just like the original. Snapshots from the 70’s 80’s and even 90’s usually have some fading, that’s really where Epson has the advantage.

[@margiedenavarre7919]

Question for you. When I scan photos on the ePhoto, it always has a black background border that I can't get rid of? It used to scan photos like you have here, just the photo. Any way I can change the settings?

[@Magiceye1955]

Very well made video, well explained. thank you

[@JavierRamosUY]

Hi, thanks for the videos and detailed reviews. I am wondering if you have any thoughts about Canon's Imageformula RS40. In particular regarding photo restoration software. I could not find any information or real scanned photos for reference. I am between Epsons and this one from canon. Thanks in advance!

[@cwaynefox]

I have the Canon scanner on order and will be doing a review on it as soon as it arrives. I’ll definitely be able to get some good comparisons.

[@JavierRamosUY]

@@cwaynefox Thanks for answering! I'll be waiting for the review then! It will be a killer video since there is no much information about that scanner. Thanks for your time. Have a nice evening!

[@sptrsttradr4918]

Thank you so much for posting this! I was going to buy it and you saved me. Where is your store and how much is it per print for you to do it? Thank you!

[@jtapia1123]

Very helpful video, thank you

[@audreykim6449]

Enjoyed the useful information. Thank you

[@cwaynefox]

Glad it was helpful!

[@user-vwskinner]

I bought the plustek photo scanner a few years ago and have recently started using it. I'm having issues where when I scan standard photos (4" x 6"), it creates a black border around them and I have to edit and crop every single one, which is time consuming and enough to make me not want to use this. Any tips on why this would be happening or how to fix it?

[@cwaynefox]

You said you bought this scanner… you mean the plustek? I didn’t use the plustek enough to really get familiar with for reasons explained in the video, but I thought it allowed setting up some auto cropping parameters in the preferences that would trim a specific amount from each scan.

[@theresasexton1571]

What would be the best option for scanning and restoration of photos....I am only looking to digitize my old photos nothing else..

[@cwaynefox]

How many? What’s your budget? An Epson perfection v600 (cheaper than the ff-680) would do a nice job, but it would be much slower than the ff-t80. If you have thousands of snapshots, a flatbed scanner can be time consuming, but perhaps it’s a project you don’t mind spending a few hours a week on for an extended period of time. I would stick with Epson scanners if the photos are faded or discolored, as Epson algorithms for this seem to be far better than anyone else. Neither the Plustek or the Canon comes close to restoring the colors as well as the Epson. I have a video about quality settings when scanning old snapshots if you are interested. (kzbin.info/www/bejne/nIPTiKKQeLOqqNE ).

[@remickmerry3836]

Thank you for the posting

[@realrender]

Does Epson FastFoto automatically Scan the reverse notes? Thanks for the video!

[@cwaynefox]

Yes

[@rsbff4521]

Very helpful, thanks.

[@GaryZenkerStoryteller]

Nicely done. Thank you

[@cwaynefox]

Thanks for watching!

[@ToddColbyBrown]

Too bad the epson won’t allow you to copy to the computer. Only goes to the few options available (Dropbox or Google)

[@cwaynefox]

Am I misunderstanding your statement? I only scan to the computer with the Epson, never directly to Dropbox or google.

[@LarsErikNes]

Tnx. It looks so nice but dont like the quality so mayby just have to buy the fast photo.

[@cwaynefox]

I think you would be happier with the results.

[@FroMan753]

Is the z300 compatible with Vuescan? I'm curious how muchcof an improvement that software would make. That'd be fantastic if you could try it out and give us an update.

[@cwaynefox]

i had the same thought, but he print would start through the scanner but stop half way. I couldn’t figure out how to get a full scan. I should have mentioned t GC at in the video.

[@FroMan753]

@@cwaynefox well I just purchased the ephoto Z300 and Vuescan and it seems to work okay. I have run into the issue a couple of times with the pictures stopping halfway through, but that seemed to be related to having "save RAW as dng" checked, although it did work once or twice with that option enabled.

[@cwaynefox]

Interesting. I tried at least 30 scans. Not sure what I might have been doing different. What version of VueScan? Maybe they updated it to make it compatible.

[@FroMan753]

@@cwaynefox it was 9.7.45 and it was on mac OS, so maybe that made a difference. I haven't tested it on a Windows computer.

[@cwaynefox]

@@FroMan753 I was using MacOS with 9.7.37, so it is quite possible they updated the software to make it compatible. thx for the update. Unfortunately I already returned it so I can't rerun the tests with VueScan to come up with side by sides. Have you compared the VueScan color restoration with the included software?

[@stephanepartagephoto6395]

Merci

[@maxinememmott8221]

helpful