The best scanner i ever had, excellent performance for a good price
Written: Dec 16 '03
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Pros: Very good scan quality, excellent software, scans negatives even without the adapter (more flexibility)
Cons: 35mm automatic negative scan quality not so good
The Bottom Line: Excellent quality for a good price, better than the other brands in this price range.
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| ktorok's Full Review: Epson Perfection 1670 Photo Flatbed Scanner |
I bought this scanner after my previous one (Genius Colorpage Vivid Pro II Film) stopped working well. I was looking for a flatbed with a well-designed and usable negative and slide adapter because i scan a lot of negatives as well, but can't afford a bigger more pro negative scanner. I looked at several such scanners before making my decision, and found the Epson's adapter the best-looking.
Software, TWAIN interface: This scanner has a very usable interface for all your scanning tasks. The CD also contains additional software (text recognition, photo editing, business card maker, etc), but i didn't install those as i don't need them.
The scanning software works quickly and is very easy to use. There is a fully automatic mode where you push the scan button on the scanner, wait until it does its magic and you're presented with a ready-to-save image. No more highlighting, selecting, rescanning, etc, it's all done automatically, you don't have to do a thing. And it gets it right the first time! I was very impressed with the ease of use and the quality of the software.
If you'd like to have more control and choose the resolution, contrast, etc, you can do all that in "Professional Mode" or choose "Home User mode" for a mix of a limited number of custom choices and partial automatic scanning. The scanner is really a scanning assistant, you can let it do the whole thing alone or you can choose to take control and do it yourself.
Photo scanning: Quite frankly, i was blown away with the clarity and color precision of the scan when i scanned the first photo. This scanner produces crisp, clear scans, and gets colors right, some images may need a little bit of correction in your photo software, but this is far better than the images i got from my previous Genius scanner.
Negatives scanning: Like ALL other such adapters, the Epson's adapter can only fit negatives in a 6-photo strip format, so you have to cut them up if you get them in roll format from your photo place. I was at first quite angry about this, because it's a silly design, but later discovered that i can actually work around it, and not use the adapter, but just lay the negative as it is on the scanner, under the transparency light and it will scan them perfectly. I haven't tried this with the 35mm negs yet, only the 120 medium format film, but it worked like a charm. I tried scanning negatives with the adapter, and i must say the quality was much worse than the photo scans, but usable if you color correct them. The scans were also grainier and even slightly blurred but maybe there is a way to tweak it to work better. I used the fully automatic mode, so it's possible that with custom settings it makes much better scans.
Overall impression: Overall, i am very happy with the scanner. The installation was very easy, there are good instructions in the included booklet, you install he software, hook it up, and it works. A very usable, nice design, with amazing scanning quality for photos and a good transparency option.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 175
Interface: USB
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Epinions.com ID:
ktorok
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Location: Budapest, Hungary
Reviews written: 4
Trusted by: 0 members
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