The Epson FastFoto scanner is an amazing machine! I was very impressed at the scanning ability, quality of scans, and setup of the product. First of all, the directions for setting up the scanner are super easy to follow. They are written in clear English, with drawings to help understand how to do it. Literally anyone could set this up. You don't actually have to assemble any parts. So easy. It provides a website link so that you can download the software and drivers directly from the internet (as opposed to sending a disc containing the driver). I actually prefer this because who really needs more discs around anymore. The download itself took about 5 minutes, which was very quick in my opinion. After setup was complete, it pops up with a window to easily register your device. I also received a firmware update immediately after installation, which I chose to install. Overall, my setup experience was excellent.
Using this scanner is super easy and intuitive as well. Simply load your documents or pictures, up to 37 at a time, and press the scan button. The scanner truly is fast and it pulls them right through without issues. I had no issues with jamming or anything being crooked the entire time I tested this scanner. You can adjust the paper input for different widths of documents of pictures, which is very handy.
After you scan your pictures, there are a variety of editing tools you can use. It has the option to automatically enhance/correct pictures as you scan them, and you can choose whether to save the original AND enhanced version or just the enhanced. I really liked how the enhanced pictures looked, so I chose just to save the enhanced ones. Probably my favorite part about this scanner is the ability to categorize photos and documents into different folders. You can easily create a subfolder each time you scan, and you can add a title and specific date for the group. You can choose a month, year, or there is the option to choose a season. I made a folder for Summer 2019 and have added pictures of my kids from this summer so far. I easily made folder for each of my kids pictures, and I made folders for work projects too. It's so easy to organize everything!
After scanning, you can also edit the photos if you desire. There are options to rotate, crop, enhance photos, remove red eye, etc. which are all very useful to me. The editing interface is great! It's very simple, intuitive, and easy to use.
A couple small issues I ran into while using this scanner: First of all, when editing photos, the program minimizes the window after each edit. This is a little annoying to me because I want to edit many pictures at once, and I have to keep pulling the window back up. Second of all, when using the feature to enhance photos while scanning, it wants to save a random negative-looking copy of the picture too. I deleted every one of these because it looks like my photo but in all white. It also saved the normal picture and the enhanced picture. So I was getting 3 versions of a photo for each scan, which made the sorting and editing process longer than I would like.
Overall the benefits of this awesome scanner definitely outweigh the negative aspects. I will continue to use this scanner for both work and personal purposes. It's very efficient and easy to use. It goes above and beyond what I could have ever expected for a scanner like this!
This is a review for the Epson FastFoto FF-680W Wireless High-speed Photo and Document Scanner System that I received free of charge to do a beta test and review.