Epson releases a new scanner that will let families speed through the digitization of all those classic family photos called the Epson FastFoto FF-680W.
If you are the main tech geek in your family, chances are in the last decade someone has approached you with a box of family photos or albums filled with mountains of family history in the hopes that you can crunch the ancient media down into a digital and distributable package. Historically this has been a tedious and time-consuming project. This is where the new Epson FastFoto FF-680W scanner comes in to save the day! Traditionally you would use a flatbed scanner that would digitize one picture at a time at a rate that would challenge a snail in its pace. With this new FastFoto FF-680W scanner you can take a stack of old photos and media and load them into the machine and have it crunch pixels while you are off covering more interesting tasks around the home or office. That alone is a tremendous advantage but when you factor in how fast it completes the task you may become the family historian’s most popular sibling.
Setup and Use
Out of the box, the Epson FastFoto FF-680W is pretty solid and well put together. But before you even plug it into the wall I recommend that you download the Epson Fast foto software. Once downloaded it is imperative that you choose a drive location big enough to handle your stack of media. The software comes with an option to automatically enhance your image and remove red-eye out of those vintage pics in your library. You can also choose to make an original copy and enhanced copy simultaneously. The size and quality can bounce between 300, 600, or 1200 DPI depending on how you wish to enlarge them in the future. JPG and TIFF are the choices you have for the file type, once again depending on your preference of size and quality. The FastFoto can also scan the front and back of the media so any notes that may have been written on the original photo can also be retained for historical purposes. The chances of having damaged or glue residue media is high if you are a historian and Epson gives you some wonderful plastic pockets to use so that the media is not further damaged or that it does not damage the scanner itself. This is great and something that I have used often. Simply insert the photo or media into the envelope and then scan it through.
Epson Smart Scan will also be a part of the package so that if you have a stack of letters or forms you wish to scan you can do so and have a file on hand to archival purposes.
Specifications
- Scanner Type: Sheet-fed, one-pass duplex color scanner
- Photoelectric Device: 600 dpi/1 line CIS
- Optical Resolution: 600 dpi
- Color Bit Depth: 30-bit internal / 24-bit external
- Monochrome Bit Depth: 1-bit
- Grayscale Bit Depth: 10-bit internal / 8-bit external
- Scanner Features: Auto enhancement, Color restoration, Red-eye reduction, De-skew, Crop, Rotate
- Output Resolution: 50 to 1200 dpi3
- Effective Pixels: 5,100 x 21,600 pixels (panoramic photo/long document up to 36″ at 600 dpi maximum)
- Light Source: 3-color RGB LED
- Scanning Speed: Photo Scan Speed (4″ x 6″ landscape): 80 ppm/160 ipm2 (300 dpi color)
- Document Scan Speed (Letter size): 45 ppm/90 ipm4 (300 dpi color)
Final Thoughts and Recommendations
The Epson FastFoto FF-680W is an amazing solution for someone who loves to archive family or historical media. It is a bit pricier than the average scanner at $549.99. What you get for that price is a powerhouse that will speed up your workflow tremendously. If you are a person who feels strongly that time is money then the investment into a FastFoto is well worth the cost. Now that more offices and families are leaning toward a paperless or close to paperless existence, the usefulness of this scanner becomes more evident by the day. The FastFoto will definitely help your business and family retain those important artifacts for years, decades, and even centuries to come.
A sample of the Epson FastFoto FF-680W was made available by the manufacturer.
Thoughts expressed in this article are the authors alone and not that of the manufacturer or editorial staff.
