UPDATE: Loving this scanner! So fast! Using it for a lot of documents too now, not just photos. It doesn’t seem to be able to scan to .pdf format as far as I can see (at least with the software provided), so I just scan the document to .jpgs then print the batch of .jpgs to a single .pdf file. Finally helping me to get rid of decades worth of paper I’d been reluctant to part with!UPDATE 2: Figured out how scan to.pdf. Not as fast, in some cases, easier to scan to.jpg and convert….——-I have a Brother multifunction that’s great for scanning documents and serviceable for the occasional photo, but I have a ton of old photo prints that I wanted to digitize and dump, and that would have been a completely unmanageable project without a high speed scanner with a feeder, so I decided to try this.Setup was easy – at least via USB; I was curious to try connecting it wirelessly to my iPad, but ran into issues with my router that I didn’t have the patience to resolve, so I just went with the USB connection for now, and that setup was straightforward as expected. The speed is certainly impressive, and the fact that it actually scans both sides is fantastic (for prints that have no data I want to keep on the back, I just delete those secondary images after the fact – easier for me that sorting pre-sorting photos into batches of one-sided vs. duplex scanning).As for photo quality, it’s very good, especially considering that many of the photos I’m scanning were taken 30+ years ago with inexpensive 126mm and 135mm point-and-shoot cameras and have less than ideal resolution and lighting. Out of curiosity, I scanned one such print with this Epson, then took it over to my Brother multifunction and scanned it at 300×300 dpi, and the Epson actually produced a noticeably better scan – more detail visible in the shadows, and sharper image overall. Despite the fact that the actual scan time was at least 50% faster in my rough estimation. Not to mention the additional effort/time needed with the flatbed scanner to lift the cover, place the image on the glass, close the cover, select the scan options in the software interface…I pretty much stuck to feeding stacks of consistently sized prints, but I did occasionally scan say a 3″x5″ and a 5″x7″ at the same time with no issue. Might be more of an issue with a large batch of mismatched sizes. I was able to scan a polaroid print with no issue, though another one kept getting stuck for some reason – perhaps because it was a shade thicker, with a bit of a lump towards the edge of the image frame, due to the layers of the polaroid separating slightly over the years. Regardless, the jam was easily cleared.No issues with streaks on the images or anything. At least so far, though I’m only about 50 images in. I was also tempted to try to Fujitsu high-speed photo scanner that also receives high ratings, but this is working well enough so far, that I think I’ll spare myself the hassle of trying that one just for comparison.

I bought this primarily for helping a friend digitize photo prints. Her mother had recently passed away, and this put a seemingly countless number of loose photos and albums into her possession. I had committed to helping her and brought my flatbed scanner, not realizing the magnitude of the task at hand. On the first day over the course of six hours, I captured and cleaned up fewer than 100 photographs this way — it clearly wasn’t a workable solution for the volume of prints needing to be captured.I started looking for a scanner with a document feeder before I even left, and among the options I found, the Epson FF-640 stood out. I read and watched various reviews, but then I found one that mentioned the newer second-generation FF-680W, which seemed like a substantial upgrade, so I ordered one.For scanning most photos, the FF-680W is incredible. With my flatbed scanner, I had to manually place each photo on the scanner, tell my image editor to acquire a scan, wait for the scanner to generate a low-resolution preview, crop and rotate the image, check image enhancements options, and then hit Scan and wait for a slower, full-resolution scan to be transferred. I then had to save the image using the image editor, giving it a name and specifying the format and image options.The FF-680W on the other hand can scan and clean up probably about 20 prints at 600dpi in the time it took my flatbed scanner to perform the pre-scan and scan of just one image. Realistically, it took me three minutes to capture and then process one image with the flatbed, all of which required tedious manual steps. When I initially started scanning with the FF-680W, I used the option of saving both the original scan and the enhanced version in separate files, but the results of the enhancements are so good that I no longer bother and keep only the enhanced images.I have experienced only a single misfeed, and that was with a photo that was glued into a heavy cardboard frame. I didn’t think it would go through the scanner and set it aside to be scanned with the flatbed, but curiosity got the better of me and I tried it anyway. If the paper path was more straight, the scanner would be able to take the place of a flatbed scanner in many cases.I find the option to automatically scan the back of the photos for handwritten notes useful, but it is overly sensitive. On some of the prints I scanned, a “Kodak” watermark on the back was often the only thing that was captured. Those errant scans are easily identified and deleted when looking at the thumbnails of the scans, but I wish the software handled this better.So far I have really only used the scanner and included software for photos, although I tested the ability to create a searchable PDF from a printed document and a form. The results were good but not perfect, as is usually the case when doing OCR.The F-680W is quick, quiet, and delivers high-quality results. If it fits within your budget, it deserves your consideration. To get the most out of it and avoid some frustration, I suggest watching Epson’s short videos about the scanner on Youtube.May 10 2019 Update:I have done quite a bit of document scanning lately, with very good results. This involved taking apart three-ring and spiral-bound manuals and scanning them into searchable PDFs. The fact that the scanners handles both sides at the same time (and can even drop empty sides of a page) and the high scanning speed makes quick work of such manuals.You get graphic images of the pages, with the text obtained through Optical Character Recognition (OCR) behind it, so you can highlight the text and copy-and-paste it, or search for it. It is very rare that the OCR software misinterprets a character.In addition to the option for dropping empty pages, the software also has a feature for removing the binding holes from the scanned image for a cleaner look, but this seems to be hit-and-miss — on some documents this has worked very well and completely eliminated them, and on others it has been inconsistent, leaving behind one or two holes from three-ring binding, or dozens on some spiral bound pages.The document scanning handles jams very well when they do occur. I had issues with one spiral-bound manual that hadn’t been read yet, and the pages were sticking together where the holes had been punched. The scanner would jam when it tried to feed pages that were stuck together, but it never damaged any of them. It also seamlessly carried on the scanning once the jam was cleared (which involves releasing a latch and tilting the front of the scanner forward, then removing the jammed page). Likewise, adding more pages after all the pages have been scanned is a simple matter of clicking on a “Scan more” button and selecting single-sided or double-sided, so you can mix both types of pages in one scan.One thing that’s missing is the ability to save the scan results in more than one format. Currently the software prompts you for a output format, and once the document is saved the scans from which the document is created are discarded. I would prefer being able to go back to the format selection so that I can save a document as both a PDF as well as a Microsoft Word document for example.August 5, 2019 Update:I just discovered the “Text Enhancement” option under the Advanced scan settings — I had seen it, but hadn’t tried it until yesterday. I am blown away by the difference that it makes when scanning documents into searchable PDF format. It has a substantial impact on scan times (each page takes two to three seconds to scan with “Text Enhancement” set to “Standard”), but the text is crystal clear and uniform, and to me the increased scan time is a small price to pay for the quality improvement in the output.I scanned a 292-page technical manual at 600 dpi with “Text Enhancement” set to “Standard” into searchable PDF format, and the only thing that gives a clue that the document was produced from a scan are the punch holes (which can be eliminated with another scan settings option). Other than that, it looks typeset.

Wow! This scanner is “fast and furious”. At 300 dpi it whips through a stack of pictures in no time at all. At 600 dpi it moves them at about 2-3 seconds per picture. You can insert a stack of pictures and it never missed. It makes transferring from photo albums to cloud storage a lot easier than a flat bed scanner. I used a USB cable (I had trouble quickly setting up the wireless option; I just wanted to start working). The software will let your computer automatically transfer the pics directly to Google cloud storage (so no need to use the wireless setup if you get frustrated with setup). A bit expensive, but boy — when you see how fast it goes you think “Yeah – worth it!”.

I am old enough to straddle the line between photos and digital cameras. I was always a hobbyist photographer, thanks to my dad. I had a Canon EOS Rebel film camera, and I took a lot of pictures in my early 20s. I had several 100s of 3×5 and 4 x 6/5×7 prints that I wanted to scan.I am not a professional archivist, but I do know just enough information to be dangerous. I scanned my pictures in at 1200 DPI interpolated, saved as JPEG. I have more network storage space than I know what to do with, so this was no big deal to me.This thing is a machine. However, like any machine, it can be very temperamental. You do need to frequently, and I mean frequently, clean the rollers and the scanner head. Otherwise, you’ll be 300 images in, and suddenly realize there’s a nice horizontal scratch across the top third of the last 200 pictures.Provided you treat this thing with kid gloves, and use the included microfiber towel to clean the photo path after every batch of photos, you’ll have images that you can edit in a proper photo editing software. Don’t even bother using the included retouching software. Pony up for something like Photomator, which is a less expensive option than subscribing to Photoshop or Lightroom.But this thing can eat up and spit out great looking scans with the quickness. Literally just throw in a bunch of photos, different sizes, don’t matter.I also discovered this thing is a beast when it comes to scanning and documents and paper. I have finally been able to eliminate the majority of my filing cabinet by turning everything into PDFs.Is it expensive? Yes. But, does it do what it says and do it well? Absofrickenlutely.To paraphrase Ferris Bueller: it is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.

Wow I can not believe the sorcery this scanner posses! The picture I put on my review is from probably around 1979 I think. It was orange and my jaw about dropped after I saw the auto correct. I actually remember those colors so this is pretty dang right on! We’ve scanned about 1000 photos so far and probably have a couple more thousand to go. We’re probably scanning about 25 photos per batch which takes probably about 10 seconds to scan and 10 more seconds to get them into the fastfoto app so we can view, rotate, etc… We check for lines like others said in their review ruined things. Normally I just look at the last photo in the bunch. Only saw lines one time like the last 3 picture in the batch. It was not obnoxious either and I normally would have just let it go but I cleaned the machine per the instructions, scanned them again and perfect. We scanned about 500 photos last night and no visible lines.Scanning the back at the same time and naming then _a and _b is awesome. My dad has about 500 photos he took in the army in the 50’s stationed in Vienna and he wrote just about on the backs of all of them where he was, what he was doing, who is in the picture, etc… I added a couple to my photo frame and it was cool you would see the photo and then the next photo up was the back and you could read it. I also built a little web page for him and used jquery flip so he could just click on a photo then it flipped over to show the other side he’s going to love that!My and my wife could not be happier with this purchase we have so many old photos we want to digitize now we just sit in the living room watching a movie at night taking our time scanning photos. It takes us longer to get them out of our binders into a stack than it does to scan them! The one thing we do also I did not mention was as we take them out of the binders we blow them off a little then stack them so we try to get as much dust off as we can which really is nothing considering we are just taking them out of protective sleeves so no real dust but doesn’t hurt.We are not having any of the other issues like original pictures getting scratched etc.. dont scan polaroids do those in a flatbed.