Epson Perfection V300 Photo Scanner

viewmaster

at 12:47 am

I bought this scanner partly to update my ageing SCSI scanner and partly to scan old 35mm negatives and slides. While I have no problem with the quality and speed of reflective scans, negative and slide scans have been disappointing. The sharpness is no better than a scan from a normal sized print, while the grain seems to be strangely exaggerated – odd since as I said the sharpness is not good. I found there was no discernable difference in quality between a 2400 dpi and a 4800 dpi scan, and a 1200 dpi scan is not much worse. That suggests that the specified 4800 dpi resolution is not being realized. The graininess is improved if you remove the default unsharp mask and add grain reduction.

Also there seems to be poor gradation of colour, especially in smooth areas such as sky. This isn’t improved by switching from 24 bit depth to 48. It’s as if something in the hardware or software is not working at 48 bits, which makes the theoretical 48 bit depth useless.

That said, I am a bit picky, and the software is easy to use and does a good job of previewing negs and slides, and the default colour adjustment is fine. If you just want it to scan in some old holiday snaps and family pictures, it’ll be fine. If you’re a professional or serious amateur you’ll probably want one of the higher end models. There’s no cheap short cut to high quality photo scans.
Rating: 3 / 5

L. J. Harris

at 2:08 am

I am more than happy with this stylishly designed scanner. The quality of the scans of prints, negatives, and slides is impressive for the price, and it takes very little time to get the hang of the clear and logical Epson software. The bundled Arcsoft programmes are another matter – clunky, prone to crash, and liable to generate unwanted messages at the bottom of the screen. The OCR programmes are not much better : OK for the occasional scanning and editing of short documents, but riddled with errors even when reading clear typescript. But that shouldn’t put anyone off buying the basic scanner – it’s just unfortunate that Epson throw in unwanted bits and pieces which are not in the same league as the software which many buyers will already have installed.
Rating: 4 / 5