Epson Perfection V550

Product	Format	Optical Resolution	Connectivity	Color Depth	Price
Epson Perfection V550	A4	6400 dpi	Hi-Speed USB 2.0	48-bit Color or 16-bit Grayscale	Click for more info

The Epson Perfection V550 photo scanner is the first 4800 dpi scanner that we will be looking at. As is the case with the other two flatbed scanners in this article, the V550 has a higher optical resolution of up to 6400 dpi. Epson uses a CCD sensor to achieve that for this line for this line of scanners. We prefer using scanners with CCD sensor in our digitization lab because CCD can capture more vividRGB colors and even if the document is not perfectly flat on the scanning glass, it will still do a good job, but most of the time you won’t see any noticeable difference between CCD and CIS (Contact Image Sensor).

This color image scanner has all the ICE image correction features that you need built into the software. It can remove scratch marks and dust marks but the problem is that these features can only be applied to film scanning on this model. The Epson V600 that we will be talking about below can apply these to scanned photos and documents as well. But apart from these, this document flatbed scanner can also automatically adjust the orientation of the photos, it can determine the scanning area by itself, but cannot automatically select the scan mode (Color, Grayscale – Halftone or Black & White). As of writing this, you as a user have to specify the scanning mode manually, maybe a software update could change that. All of these features are things that you can do in Photoshop but it takes a ridiculous amount of time.

You get the best Optical Character Recognition software in the form of ABBYY FineReader. It’s not the full version that you can buy from ABBYY but it does have the same OCR engine. The Canon CanoScan Lide 400 scanner, a direct competitor for the Epson Perfection V39 and all Canon flatbeds for that matter don’t come with an Abbyy license included, but with a proprietary version of OCR which is inferior in terms of text recognition accuracy.

Epson Perfection V600

Product	Format	Optical Resolution	Connectivity	Color Depth	Price
Epson Perfection V600	A4	6400 dpi	Hi-Speed USB 2.0	48-bit Color or 16-bit Grayscale	Click for more info

Many people ask the question: Epson Perfection v550 vs Epson Perfection V600. What is the difference between these Epson Scanners? The Epson Perfection V600 photo scanner has mostly the same specs: A pixel density of 6400 dots per inch from the same CCD (Charge-Coupled Device) sensor making it more than a 4800 DPI scanner, in terms of connectivity it is the same for both with a connection to your computer through a USB 2.0 port and a color bit depth of 48-bit for when you scan in color and 16-bit for grayscale. The maximum document size is A4 and both of these devices require an AC Cable for power.

The Epson V600 like I mentioned before, can apply the ICE feature that removes dust and scratches to both film negatives and photos and documents. There is a very small price difference between them and the extra feature is worth it if you are planning to digitize your old color photos.

Like the V550, it is compatible with Windows 64-bit and Mac OS X. The software that comes bundled with it contains: Epson Easy Photo Fix, Epson Copy Utility, ArcSoft PhotoStudio, ABBYY FineReader Sprint Plus OCR. ABBYY is always welcomed on a scanner because it helps you convert your JPEG, TIFF and PDF documents into searchable PDFs, Word Documents and even eBooks.

The text recognition accuracy is the highest on any software on the market. The Easy Photo Fix feature included can automatically restore old photos so that you don’t have to manually work them. It actually works rather nice when you scan multiple photos because its mostly automatic.

The Epson Scan software can sync with Google Drive, Dropbox, Evernote or OneDrive and upload your digital images automatically to the cloud. It has all the interfaces that you need, TWAIN, ICA and WIA to pair it with any scanning app on the market and there are drivers for both operating systems, Windows and Mac OS.

The document photo scanner weighs approximately 9 lb. (4 kg) so it is easy to move around in the office. It uses ReadyScan LED technology, far superior to the old fluorescent lamps that you used to get on old flatbed scanners. It doesn’t need to warm-up and has minimal power consumption. It has a film holder for scanning 35mm negatives, slides and for medium format film. It also has 4 buttons on the front of the scanner that you can program to do custom functions.

It is important to always check the V600 price and the V550 price when you are buying because just a minor discount on the V600 can get them at an equal price. If you are looking for a lower budget scanner, then the Epson V39 which can also do 4800 DPI is the right one for you.

Epson Perfection V800

Product	Format	Optical Resolution	Connectivity	Color Depth	Price
Epson Perfection V800	A4	6400 x 9600 dpi	Hi-Speed USB 2.0	48-bit Color	Click for more info

The V800 is the more high-performance scanner but it does come at a higher price. It can output scanned images at an image resolution of 6400 dpi optical. Just be aware that you shouldn’t use a scanning resolution of 6400 dpi to scan unless you are scanning film, because the image size will exceed 1-2 GBs. It is a USB scanner too with a USB cable included, you get the same type of TWAIN driver and all the Digital ICE photo restorer features.

The color depth of this photo and document scanner is the same as on the other two scanners and it makes sense, because you can find many colors in the 48-bit palette and at this point it is not about how many different colors it can reproduce as much as it is about how much of that palette it can access in the same photo. It is also a film and negative scanner because it comes with a transparency unit and 4 film holders, compatible with medium-format film and prints, mounted slides negatives and 35mm film.

The software bundle is a bit different: Epson Scan, LaserSoft Imaging SilverFast SE software. The Silverfast offers more advanced features than the standard software on the V600 and it is meant towards professional imaging and of course it’s not as easy to use and learn as the basic Epson Easy Photo Fix technology which usually works great for things like family photos.

The Silverfast photo editing software has proved to be very good at negative scanning because of its negative to positive conversion technology. You can apply it to slides and negatives. It also removes scratches and dust particles from film and photo paper better than the Epson Easy Fix.

So the question is: What are you paying the extra-money for? The Epson V800 has a dual-lens system and can hit a dynamic range of 4.0 Dmax. What does that mean? Basically this scanner scans the picture with a much higher dynamic range and higher scan quality.

So it can capture more of the colors that are there in your high-quality photos than the V600 and V550. This is especially true also with film negatives and slide scanning. It does a much better job scanning film than the other two. No compromise was made when they built the V800 and that’s why the price is much higher. So if you are a professional or maybe picky on image quality, it will be well worth it to spend the extra dollars on a better film scanner. The extra sets of film holders, better blacks and the superior software will all result in better film scanning.

Which 4800 DPI Scanner should I buy?

The final verdict: In the Epson V800 vs V600 vs V550, The Epson V600 is our favorite 4800 DPI scanner from the point of view that it is the best value for money, it offers more or less the same features as the V800, but if you need really advanced imaging features then we recommend the V800 as that will give you more dynamic range and more detils in the photos. If you are choosing Epson V550 vs Epson V600, our pick would be the V600. Regardless, any Epson Perfection Photo scanner of the three listed here is a highly-rated scanner and you can’t go wrong with either of them. If you need an ADF with your flatbed scanner, the HP ScanJet line is our choice. Those scanners do a great job to scan documents and a decent one with photo scans. In our scanning projects we almost always use a combination of dedicated flatbeds and ADF scanners.