Epson FastFoto FF-680W Wireless High-Speed Photo and Document Scanning System, Black

This scanner completely lives up to its billing as "the world's fastest personal photo scanner." I had thousands of old photos that, because we're moving, I wanted to store electronically while throwing out the paper copies. After doing a fair amount of research, I landed on the Epson FastFoto 680W. It's pricier than some other scanners but well worth it. In two days, I scanned more than 4,000 photos without a hitch -- the scanner worked flawlessly across all different sizes of photos. It even enhanced the quality of the photos as I scanned them. One caveat: keep in mind that the super-fast scans (no more than a second per photo) produce photos that are 300 dots per inch; if you want to scan at a higher dpi, the scanner is a lot slower. As a result, I decided to keep copies of a handful of very special photos, while still being content to keep only digital versions of at least 95% of them. After scanning several thousand photos, I switched to document mode to scan hundreds of paper files that I also wanted to get rid of and it was even faster than it was for the photos because it scans even two-sided documents in no more than a second. My days of paper copies are finally over. In fact, I'm keeping the scanner on my desk so that every time I get a document that I want to save, I instantly scan it and then discard the hard copy of the document. Overall, this is one of the best products I've ever purchased and definitely the best scanner I've ever used. Unfortunately, after I wrote that review, and for no apparent reason, the scanner suddenly stopped working with my computer (a fairly new iMac). The computer simply stopped recognizing the scanner and nothing could get it to work, even after I uninstalled and then tried to reinstall the software several times. The software won't re-install unless the computer recognizes the scanner, which it won't. And the Epson customer support people were no help at all. So, while this is a magnificent piece of hardware, the software seems like it's still a work in progress. I'm updating my review to increase it to five stars. After the computer suddenly stopped recognizing the scanner, I finally tried replacing the cable connecting the scanner to the computer. Presto, the computer recognized the scanner again. So it wasn't the scanner that went bad; it was the cable that I was using. The scanner truly is phenomenal.

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.

I watched this model's predecessor stay at the top of reviews for years, until this updated model came out to replace it. I'm so glad I finally purchased it. The multi-photo feeder works flawlessly with standard-thickness photos. Thicker (card stock) or very small photos require individual scanning using the provided vinyl sleeve. That worked for the few old Polaroid snapshots and for the our son's extra-thick senior year photos. The included (downloadable) software worked perfectly on my MacBook. There are versions for Windows and Linux too. Though I'm not interested in a photo capture business, with this model you could certainly do that as a side or part-time gig. Archival (600 dpi), 4x6 prints scan speed is about 2 seconds per print. Tips: 1. Take the time to setup the file autonaming convention first. Use the year element in the name instead of depending solely on the year in a folder title. That will make it easy to tell roughly when photos were taken, in the event you later send or move copies of photos outside of ther folders. Experiment with a few prints to be sure the files are (a) going where you intend and (b) are named as you intend. 2. Organize each packet of prints into two batches: portrait orientation and landscape orientation. Put them in reverse order from how you want them numbered. (The feeder pulls from the back of the stack.) 3. Feed one orientation stack (for example, landscape images) first, then the other, so the sliding side guards can stay in one position for a whole stack. This will save you a lot of time. 4. Select the auto-improve function without saving the unimproved original scan. Test a stack of photos to be sure you like the image improvements. This will save you hours of later fiddling in a separate image editing app. 5. Using a photo annotation pen, mark the back of each scanned photo with an 'S' or other symbol that will remind you the print has been scanned. 6. Backup your scanned images to more than one destination. If long-term durability of local media is a concern, burn to Blu-Ray disc and be sure to have a stand-alone high-reliability Blu-Ray writer / reader. Another strategy is to use one or more reliable online backups, such as iDrive. I use iDrive, Dropbox, and iCloud. I don't trust Google after it corrupted several thousands of my photos. (Fortunately, I don't trust any one platform completeley, so I had other backups.) I also backup to a high-quality flash drive and to DVDs. Keep in mind that the stability of data on those media is rated in years, up to 10, after which the data tend to decay, which is where Blu-Ray comes in, with a 100-year estimated data reliability, assuming the hardware to read it will still work in 100 years. I'm not going the Blu-Ray route, but would if I couldn't stand the thought of my descendants not having access to my photos.

I was a little hesitant to pick this up after reading over some of the reviews but it was the best recommendation of the research I did. I actually really like it and the design is great. I went with direct USB connection so I cannot rate or review the wifi connection option. The installation on a Mac was super easy, just go to the website and download the software. After installation it just connects to the printer. The only issue I ran into was a few pictures that had an additional picture or something taped or glued onto them. This does NOT like changes in width and immediately jams. Not a deal breaker as I only had maybe 2 or 3 of those and used an old flatbed scanner for those. The jams on this are SO EASY to fix, you just pull the button to open the entire unit in one smooth action. One thing I noticed going through piles of old photos was some of them were a little dirty/dusty. Not like really dirty or anything, but for very sensitive scanning equipment you may want to blow a little air or something over your pile(s) before scanning them, depending on how you stored yours (some of mine were out but most were securely stored in boxes). Not a big deal for me but if yours are a little dusty you may want to clean the inside a few times during your time using this magic machine. This dusty may be what resulted in a few of the commenters lines showing up on their scanned images as something on the scan screen will streak across the scanned output. And is "magic machine" actually a true statement... Yes, yes it is. I burned through a pile of several hundred pictures in NO TIME AT ALL... I was absolutely shocked how quick it went, and I was using the 600dpi vs the quicker 300 so about half the speed but so much better picture quality. I attempted to scan photos a few months ago and miserably failed because it ended up being SO time consuming trying to use an old flatbed scanner. The machine unfolds like a transformer. I like this because it makes it perfect for travel, making it more compact and less likely to break anything. This will be used the next time we visit family to quickly scan a few of their piles of pictures. The design was very well thought out. The software "corrective" features are so so, they end up making most pictures just too grainy, making them look worse. This is I assume why they have on by default the "keep original and make a copy for corrections" feature. Some of the pictures did work out so it wasn't a complete loss and it didnt take any extra effort or time. This is a beast of a scanner. I would highly recommend it for anyone with a massive amount of pictures to scan in. It's also great for lower resolution scans of documents so it can keep its worth after you get through your pile of pictures.

Original Review: I had seen others comment about potential harm to glossy photos and so I was careful to test with some 4x6 photos I didn't care about. Well, I'm disappointed to report that feeding photos through does make faint, permanent vertical streaks through the glossy layer of photos. I tested with some 20+ year old Kodak 4x6 prints. It's not terribly obvious, but held at various angles to light, you'll see the glossy layer is marred and streaked from top to bottom all across the photo after even a single pass through the scanner. It's not horrible but it's still bothersome to know that it can so easly mar the glossy layer. Also, be aware that it becomes more prominent with more passes. This is with a brand new unit, ordered June 2020. Why? What's going on here? What is it about the feed mechanism that it's lightly rubbing/etching through the gloss layer? Update: I can now add that it doesn't happen with all prints. I've found that the older prints I'm going through now (from the 1980's) seem to have a different, lighter glossy layer don't end up marred at all. As for the image scan quality, it's pretty decent and certainly usable. I tested only the 600 dpi setting. The automatically-enhanced version often looks better than the untouched version, but it sometimes introduces issues like graininess from applying excessive brightness or contrast. So I'm using my desktop photo editing software to touch up all the unmodified versions with more care than the automated process. (Admittedly, this takes a lot of time and experience to do well.) What this device does deliver best is speed and ease of scanning. It's fantastic how quickly it will automatically feed and scan a couple dozen photos at a time. So nice and fast! It's so convenient I've decided to keep the device and my girlfriend has been busily scanning all her old photos without a care since she was planning to throw out the original photos anyway. I've started scanning some even older photos that are going through without getting marred at all and I've decided it is worth the potential risk of minor, subtle marking. Will be nice to have them all in a more accessible digital form, than their old albums or, worse yet, boxes of envelopes. Usage tip: Be aware that when you feed a stack of photos through the scanner, it will generate files that are indexed in reverse order and it will collate subsequent multiple groups from the same stack in reverse order as well. This was not mentioned in the instructions or the software, and it took a few passes to figure out what was going on. Here's the deal: say you have a stack of 100 photos and the top face-up one is considered #1 and the bottom one is #100. When you grab the top 25 or so and load them into the scanner face-up as you're supposed to, it will autofeed from the bottom up, scanning #25 first and #1 last but it will number the files so that the first one scanned will be named #25 and the last one scanned will be named #1. If you then feed another batch of 25 from that stack of 100 without ending the job, it will also reorder them so that the bottom of that batch, which is scanned next will end up being named #50 and the last in that batch will be named #26. And so on through all the batches from that stack. Once you tell it you're done with the stack, it'll spit them all out so that the top one will be #1 and the bottom one will be #100 even though they were scanned at various points in the process. It's certainly a helpful mechanism but they definitely should have pointed out what was going to happen so you'd know what order to feed them in to get them in the desired order.

I decided to digitize my family photos for my parents and siblings for Christmas. At first, I was using a regular printer flatbed scanner but the quality of the scan was really poor. I tried putting pictures through the auto feed on it and they would stretch the picture and twist them to an angle as it fed them through. It was slow and I had to crop every single picture. It took FOREVER! I started researching scanners and found this one. It seemed like a good one so I bought it. The original scanner I was using was scanning the pics at 200 dpi. I figured out that I could have increased it to 300 dpi but that was it. This scanner has a minimum of 300 dpi for photos and goes up to 1200 dpi. The pictures are so much better quality and it's so fast I was able to redo all the ones I had previously scanned in no time. Best of all, I didn't have to crop every single one! I have some pictures that were really poor quality. The auto enhance feature on this scanner helps a lot. I'm able to save really dark pictures and it'll lighten them up to where you can actually see who is in them! I will say that it doesn't like Polaroids. It thinks they are multiple pictures. Luckily I only have a few of these. I just put them in the sleave that's included for delicate pictures and they go through just fine. I do have to crop these photos though. This sleave works great for tiny pictures as well. I was able to scan documents as well. You do have to download the Epson ScanSmart app for this. It took forever to figure this out as it isn't clear in the user manual. I thought you could just select ScanSmart in the Fast Photo app but it still scanned it as a jpg file. You have to actually download the ScanSmart app to scan a PDF or Word document. It has several other formats as well. The ScanSmart app allows you to crop and straighten pages. This is so helpful for my family history pages. Sometimes they were slanted on the page because they'd been photocopied so many times. One included an inch or so of the next page, like they'd been copied from a book. I was able to crop this out and straighten the page before putting in it Word or PDF format. And if the pages are out of order you can drag them in order before putting them in whatever format you choose. Or if one was accidentally upside down you could correct this as well before selecting your format. I love the duplex scanning feature for documents as well. It's so nice that it doesn't have to flip pages over like the regular printer scanners do. It just smoothly scans. And it's FAST! I'm scanning my family history that was mostly typed on typewriters. It's cool that I can transform these into Word or PDF documents. The Word documents allow for editing which is nice because they are more legible and you can correct spelling and grammar while you're at it. It does require a lot of editing though because the auto character recognition doesn't always translate correctly. Not the fault of the technology but because these documents have been photocopied multiple times and sometimes c's look like o's, etc. Still, it's all worth the time to digitize these important memories. This is worth the money for sure. I'm so happy I bought it!

The good - It’s fast. It will accept a large stack of photos. It has all the necessary cables and software included. The bad - It struggles with glossy’s. From the first couple photos it was creating track marks from the feed wheels down the center of the photos. It doesn’t completely destroy the photo but makes a noticeable track down the front. Epson knows this because they have added an editing feature in the advanced scanning options. You toggle the box to “decrease vertical lines”. On their website they have a troubleshooting guide to avoid the tracks. It walks through them coaching you to use perfectly clean photos and how to clean the glass on the scanner. Unfortunately the tips don’t work. I can start with 5-10 perfectly clean photos wiped carefully with a microfiber cloth, thoroughly clean the internal scanning components, and it will create the vertical lines from about the 3rd photo on. It’s very frustrating. Nobody wants to risk damaging old photos just for the sake of converting them to digital, especially on ones where you’re missing the negatives. The post processing restoration aspect sounded handy but what Espon provides isn’t great. It seems like it’s taking a very generic snapshot of the histogram on the scanned photo and simply trying to expand it. It completely softens any sharpness or detail that was in the photo. On the few that I did do I completely turned off processing as there are dozens of other software options that use AI driven steps to really restore and improve the photo. If you allow Epson to modify the scan without saving the original scan, you’ll struggle to get a good result in the end. Definitely won’t be keeping this.

Wow. Not often I'm utterly impressed by a product but I am with this scanner. Straightforward setup, everything worked perfectly. The 300dpi is good, 600 is very good and 1200 excellent for that special photo you need to pull as much detail as possible from. I was very pleasantly surprised by the software's image adjustment - it may not be perfect but it does amazingly well on some pretty poor pictures. If you have a photo that's critical, you can scan and keep a copy without adjustments so you can adjust yourself later. I have boxes of family photos I've been meaning to archive but doing it on my flatbed scanner turned it into a massive job. Also, prior to each batch you are given the opportunity to name/date the folder so organization is excellent. On top of everything else this scanner is extremely compact and light. I thought I'd need a "permanent spot" for it, but I've got it sitting under my desk, just sit it on the desk to use, then unplug and put away. Six stars, grand slam home run. Seriously.

Like that it is fast, does a good job and photos can be scanned in batches. I had previously used a flatbed for scanning however inherited a huge number of photos I wanted to digitalise. This is the perfect scanner for the job.

Lo único que le falto es digitalizar credenciales !!

This is one of the few scanners that has a auto feed to scan stacks of photos at a time. Much faster than using a flatbed scanner. Therefore I bit the bullet and bought this. Turns out it's worth every penny! - Scans BOTH SIDES of photos at the same time. If there are notes on the backs of the photos, they will be scanned. - The quality is excellent. I scanned the same set of photos on my HP all-in-one printer/scanner and this scanner. This scanner captures much more detail from the photos especially the shadow areas. - Files can be saved in lossless .tif format (or lossy .jpg format) - FastFoto app can apply auto adjustments to pictures (colour, brightness, and redeye), and save these adjustments in a SEPARATE file, preserving the original scan in case you want to edit it later using more "advanced" apps like Photoshop. - Scanner itself is compact and folds up for storage. It's sitting on my mom's desk right now, and it takes up less than half the space than the flatbed scanner she had. - It is FAST. Takes a few seconds to scan each photo at 600dpi. (there are also 300dpi and 1200dpi options) - Files are automatically put into folders and numbered. When adding more files to the same folder, the numbering continues from the last picture. - File numbering corresponds to the order you load the photos (with the front photo being #0001). It actually scans them in reverse order but the file numbering will be correct after scanning. Helps with my OCD making sure that photos are in the order taken. - Can scan documents as well as pictures. I did notice some etching of glossy photos like some reviewers mentioned. The etching results in some streaks in the scans, and those get blown up by some AI photo editing tools. I would say this is a minor annoyance because the image quality is so much better than flatbed, and it's so much faster to scan hundreds of photos. I don't plan to keep the originals and I will look into removing the streaks in the editing workflow.

I bought this scanner to clear up some storage bins of photographs after my mom passed away, and it has been worth every penny. I'm SO glad I invested in this because it has allowed me to save a HUGE amount of photographs from years and years ago, preserving precious memories that might have otherwise been lost. The picture quality is outstanding, capturing even the smallest details in both photos and documents. It's incredibly easy to use, making the scanning process quick and efficient. I've also started scanning my kids' drawings, so I can save them forever too. The accuracy of the scans is almost perfect, with just the occasional minor adjustment needed. Overall, I am very happy with this purchase. If you have a lot of photos or documents to digitize, this scanner is a fantastic choice. Highly recommend!

This scanner lives up to its claim to scan a photo per second. I have literally been able to scan thousands of photos in a day. The quality is great, and it is very easy to use and set up. The software is easy to use, and has enabled me to file and describe photos so that they are easy to retrieve when I need to. Would highly recommened this to anyone with lots of photos smaller than A4 size to scan in.