EpsonFastFoto FF-680W Wireless High-Speed Photo and Document Scanning System

With boxes of old prints of all sizes and from cameras of different quality that I wanted to scan to preserve for posterity and ease of viewing and sharing, this was the only option as scanning on a flatbed would take a lifetime.I was sceptical and it was not cheap but decided to go for it.Well, more than 15000 prints later I am still amazed by this machine.It was easy to set up, is easy to use and gives good results. Even scanning at maximum optical resolution (600 dpi) it is SO quick. A 36 print pack goes through in not much longer than it takes to get the next ones ready and pack the previous ones away so you really can digitise a lifetime of prints in a reasonable time.Feed jams are rare and only caused by prints with album glue residue or being lazy and trying to get different print sizes through in the same run (and to be fair the instructions say not to do this).The option to scan the back at the same time is a real bonus where information has been written on a photo. As the process of scanning is so quick I moved on to prints inherited from my Grandmother, the oldest being early 1900's with a lot of family history recorded on the back which has been automatically captured.The auto correct works well for most prints, and of course further editing can be done in Photoshop or Lightroom. It is very impressive on old, slightly faded prints (see examples). Black and white works as well as colour, and the option to create 2 copies of the scan - the original and a corrected one - automatically means that if you are not happy with the auto corrected version you have the original to work on as you wish.With the volume of scans I have done, and the age and poor storage of some of the originals I have had a few issues with lines on the scans that have been easily resolved by a quick clean of the scan area which is easy to do and good instructions are supplied.Really recommend this scanner if you have a lot of prints to digitise - the old photos have been looked at more on the computer by the family then they ever were in the boxes in the loft ! I have disposed of all the prints, saving quite a bit of space, but kept the negatives just in case.

This is a wonderful piece of equipment and very easy to recommend . It scans Photographs and produces nice files at 300 dpi , 600 dpi and 1200 dpi. The speed at all levels is very fast but clearly slightly slower for big files. I found the software worked faster on a PC than on a Mac but both were amazingly fast compared with anything else I have used . The resulting copies can be duplicated and an enhanced version with colour and exposure correction can be produced . For example I scanned over 12000 files ( 6000 pictures ) over a few hours ( the rate is about 30 in 30 seconds but you have sometimes to wait for the software to clear the memory buffer.Document feeding is a dream and the Duplex system scans double sided documents with ease and at speed. Watch videos on Youtube to confirm this. Files can then be saved to a number of functions including Word documents which automatically reads them as an OCR document.Overall this is a dream machine if you want to archive documents , alter them or just save an archive of photographs in high quality at great speed. Not cheap but worth every penny.Recommended +++ Well done Epson !!

The hardware is called fastfoto and to be fair it is, scanning lots of photos in a very short period of time. However there is a huge fundamental flaw in the fastfoto software, it doesn’t matter what settings you select for the scanning of your photos it will always use high compression JPG format as the output, resulting in really bad quality scans. Any dark areas of the photos show all sorts of ghosting where the jpg compression has taken place.I contacted Epson who have confirmed that this is how the software works and there is no plan to update it. The issue doesn’t manifest in smart scan which is the document scanning software that also comes with the kit. However scanning photos with this is a much more laborious process.As a result I would strongly suggest that no one touches this with a barge pole, shame as it has the potential to be so much better.

I had been using my All-in-one to scan photos when I got a large batch of family photos I wanted to scan at high resolution. I found this one (open box) and thought it fit the bill for me. I like that there is no power supply - just plug into the computer. Resolution (dpi) options are very good. You can scan multiple images at one time and save as separate files. I wouldn’t say it’s scans super fast, but it’s not slow. Worked seamlessly with my MacBook Air. The software for the scanned works well: good number of settings for photos, documents, ability to save settings. It’s small (thin) and easily stores away. Very good value for the price.

As a document scanner this is brilliant. Super fast and very easy to use.As a photo scanner it has proved disappointing. Although fast, the problem of lines appearing on photos due to dust or dirt on the sensor is a problem. Selecting the option in the software to reduce the effect if lines results in totally unacceptable artifacts in the shadow areas of darker pictures.