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

Customer Reviews

• A.

  Need to scan a lot of inherited photos?

  I inherited several large 20+ gallon totes full of family photos when my last immediate family member passed away several years ago. My ultimate goal was to scan all the photos in so that I could have a digital copy of them and do *something* with all the totes of physical pictures. At first, I picked up a flat bed scanner off Craigslist but that turned out to be problematic and cumbersome. In order to get a several scanned in, I'd end up adding 30 minutes total to one scan because of all of the post photo editing that is needed to crop photos and re-adjust etc. After several hours and only managing to scan in maybe 50-100 photos, I gave up and put the totes aside until I could figure out a better alternative.I researched photo scanning services and with as many photos as I have, it would not have been feasible. The most "economical" package I could find was to scan 200 photos and the cost would be in the ballpark of $500. Considering I would have well over 200 photos to scan, I could not, in my right mind, justify paying this much $ to have my photos scanned.In one of my late night, "my brain won't slow down enough to fall asleep moments." I started researching "auto-feed" scanners and if something like this would be possible. This is how I came across the FastFoto 680W. I read the reviews on Bolo as well as other websites not related to Epson, I saw the pros and cons and decided that it would be worth investing in this scanner in order to get these numerous totes of photos scanned in.The scanner arrived and I had issues setting the scanner up on our wifi. I followed the steps as instructed and still had issues setting up the scanner on wifi. Having the scanner setup via USB wasn't the best idea due to space on my desk and location of my computer equipment in my office. After uninstalling/reinstalling, coming across random "bummer" errors and just no luck, I called Epson and had them assist. Not sure what it was, but they had me walk through all of the steps I performed and re-performed and it set up just fine.Once the scanner was setup, I was able to start scanning photos. I sorted through the photos and stacked them in similar photo sizes and time frames (or at least rough time frames). For the most part I haven't run into any issues scanning photos. Some of the photos I have from the 50's are are on thick card stock which will not process through the auto-feed scanner and will need to be scanned another way. I haven't specifically counted, but I've placed a stack of more than 30 photos and it ran through without issue. So far, I've scanned over 1000 photos in. Periodically, I will get a notice on my PC to clean the scanner and have noted a few photos come through with lines on them but nothing too major.I really like the auto-correct feature that comes with the photo scanning software. I have it set to where I can select which of the 2 scans look better and delete the one I don't want. What is really cool about the scanner, is the smallest pictures I've been able to scan so far. The card the image is on is maybe less than 2" by 1" in size, so the image is super tiny. When the photos are enlarged in the software, you can see all the details that you couldn't see (without a magnifying glass at least) on the original image. The quality and age of the photo comes into play here, so the output of what you scan really depends on what is on the original photo. I've never seen photos before of my grandparents from when they were younger than their 40's. Finding these photos has been fascinating and to be able to see them like this... :-O I've had luck scanning photos from WWII era, all the way back to the early 1900's if not before.I've used the scanner to scan documents as well. The scanning process for the most part has been super easy, I've used the double-sided scan feature in the Epson ScanSmart software. I've run into a couple of errors where it scans the front of a document, shows it in the software but after you save to PDF, it is missing the front that you just scanned. Haven't quite worked out the details on that.My 2nd run in with Epson tech support wasn't as great as the first one. The first one, I felt like I was being talked down to and like I was wasting their time. It may have been the accent, I'm not sure but the 2nd time was most definitely worse than the first.I was scanning stacks of documents in using the ScanSmart software one night and haven't had any issues. Everything was scanning fine, I was using the double-sided scanning option in the software. Then we had a power surge and everything in the house shut off and some things came back on (like they would when something like this happens). When I booted my PC back up to start scanning again, I was now missing the double-sided scanning option and could not get my scanner back online to continue scanning. I had the option of single-sided scanning and the option for the trial to scan receipts and invoices but my double-sided scanning option was no longer there. I performed several actions to troubleshoot the problem, including uninstalling/reinstalling the ScanSmart software, unplugging and plugging back in the scanner (finally got that back online and it would scan photos but NOT documents to PDF), uninstalled drivers for OCR and PDF, a myriad of other things in the correct steps needed to be taken. I finally gave up and called Epson. The first guy I talked to had no clue what I was talking about when I mentioned the double-sided scanning option in the software, played it off like I had no idea what *I* was talking about and was just in general incompetent. I finally got transferred to a manager who also talked down to me and because apparently it was right before their end of shift/end of day, told me that he would email me a document on how to remove a "core folder" for the software within 5 minutes after we got off the phone call, only to be hung up on and lied to. I ended up using the contact support feature on the epson website and told them everything and it wasn't until after I submitted that, that I got the instructions I was promised before that I didn't get. Long story short, I ended up figuring out how to fix the scanner issue that required a lot of digging through program files on my PC, temp files and other places. Any average person would probably not have been able to figure this out on their own.My experiences with Epson have been LESS than stellar. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being excellent, 1 being the worst, I'd rate them at a 2 or 3.The scanner itself works great. There are flaws, you will/may run into issues. Being able to scan in all these photos has been a relief to finally be able to do. Be prepared if you have to call Epson though as you will probably get the same level of service I received.

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• D. T.

  Works well for my purposes

  Based on some of the reviews here, I was apprehensive about buying this. But I looked at my large stash of boxes of pre-digital photos and took the plunge. So far (after about three days of scanning), I am pleased with the quality and speed of the scans.My rough estimate is that I have about ten thousand family photos to be scanned. Nearly all of them are 4 x 6 glossy prints from the 1990s and the first year or two in the 2000s, before I started using digital cameras. In the past three days, with about six hours of effort, I've scanned perhaps 1500 of these photos. I'm scanning at 600dpi, which is the highest resolution offered by the FF680-W. (The 1200dpi option doesn't actually scan at 1200dpi---it scans at 600dpi and interpolates to get more pixels. I am not interested in that option.)At 600dpi, it takes about 3 seconds per photo, plus a few seconds at the end of each batch (of 25 or 36 or however many photos you stacked in the scanner). But the overall time to scan, say, 500 photos is a good bit more than 500 x 3 seconds = 1500 seconds = 25 minutes. In my case, at least, it takes about 2 hours to scan 500 photos, because I generally want each batch of 25 or so to go into its own folder, and it takes time to type in the name of the folder, and time to take the paper photos out of their envelope and load them into the scanner, and to take them out of the scanner and put them back into their envelope, and so on. And before scanning a batch, I do a quick check of the back of the photos to see whether I want the backs scanned, too. And after scanning a batch, I go through the folder and rotate any photos that need rotating. (So far, I haven't bothered to enhance the photos that appear to merit enhancement. I'm leaving that for a later time.) Still, 2 hours to scan 500 photos is wonderfully quicker than doing that on a flat-bed scanner!I was worried about a few things: (1) The quality of the scans, particularly with glossy photos with dark areas. (2) Whether the scanner would actually damage the original photos, which has been reported by some reviewers. (3) Whether the scanning process would be awkwardly slowed down by the necessity to clean the scanner frequently. (4) Whether the software would help improve the quality of the scans. (5) Whether the software would help me organize the scanned photos into folders.Here is my current evaluation of each of these concerns:(1) Quality of scans: Quite satisfactory. Good enough for my purposes. Not quite as good as the originals.(2) Damage to originals? None whatsoever! I was relieved to see this, since some other reviewers reported damage.(3) Frequent cleaning of the scanner required? Not for me. Fortunately, all of my photos have been stored for years in envelopes inside boxes (boxes mostly the size and shape of shoe boxes), and almost never removed, so that there is virtually no dust on them. I haven't cleaned the scanner at all yet, after about 1500 scans. Your mileage may vary.(4) Good software to improve the quality of the scans? Not great. It gives some options that I have tried and then decided not to use much, or ever.For instance: (4a) Auto Enhance adjusts brightness, contrast, and saturation. It seems to do a generally good job, but not always. You can optionally keep both the original scan and the adjusted one, but that doubles the number of files and the total size on your disk drive. Keeping only the adjusted ones risks messing up an occasional photo. I'd rather carefully adjust them myself (the ones that are precious enough to merit adjustment) with photo editing software. (4b) Remove Red Eye. Sometimes it works well. Other times it puts black spots where it shouldn't. I don't use it. (4c) Restore Faded Colors. My photos are not faded, so I don't use this. (4d) Scan the back of photos that have detectable printing or handwriting. This sounds like a good idea, if someone years ago took the trouble to write on the backs of some of the photos. That is probably true of a few of mine. The problem is that nearly all of mine have something printed on the back, such as "Kodak Paper" or mysterious numbers that unfortunately do not indicate the date the photo was taken. So if you use this option, you get double the number of scans (and double the number of megabytes of disk space), and it's mostly not of any interest, at least for my particular photos. (4e) Auto Rotation. Automatically rotate scans so that people's heads are at the top, not bottom or side. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to work very well. It fails to rotate some that it should rotate, and vice versa. I find it simpler to rotate the ones that need it, myself. (4f) There are some other options that I haven't felt the need for, and haven't tried.(5) Good software for organizing the thousands of photos I need to scan? Fair. You can specify the location of the folder into which each batch of scans should go as well as the filename prefix for each scanned photo . Usable, but a bit awkward. Not as flexible in naming the files as I had hoped. But not a show stopper.Overall: I am very pleased with this purchase. If anything changes, I will update the review.

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• D.

  You WILL regret buying this product

  I buy many products from Bolo, but do not often feel the urge to write reviews, this is an exception and a warning.Initially I was very happy with this product . I had a large number of photos to scan and the device did a very good job of cutting through them, contrary to other reviews I've read here. Some review complain of damage, some reviews complain of distorted images - I saw none of that.Use as directed, clean the sensor and pickup wheels every couple hundred photos and you'll get worthy results..HOWEVER the E1460-B305 "Can't communicate with scanner" issue that is widely reported on the internet is real. You WILL run into this issue. After using the scanner for some time I unplugged it, and stored it carefully. On trying to use it again I was presented with some cryptic light pattern ending with an amber exclamation. Windows can see the scanner in the device manager, the epson fast foto and epson scan software can see the scanner, but both report that they cannot communicate with the scanner - E1460-B305.If you are considering WIFI scanning - DON'T - unless you have a WPS compatible router. This unit only supports WPS wireless connections, which is very unfortunate, and for the life of me, I can't understand - why these bozos can't support wireless configuration through the USB port is becuase they are either lazy or incompetent - both good reasons to avoid the product.Really frustrating for users of all skill levels. This scanner will initially wow you with easy, but your experience WILL end in frustration.

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• P. L.

  A device with a lot of promise and a few flaws

  I have several scanners hooked up to my computers; they serve different purposes (slides, large format, regular flatbed). I bought the FF-680W because I had a lot of photos to scan in a short period of time. Most of them were 4 x 6 or smaller and I wanted to get through them in an efficient manner. I had been using a Fujitsu ix-500 scanner which is awesome for documents and sometimes ok for small photos. I thought the FF-680W might do a better job. Easy to set up and use; no issues that way. Quality of scans is reasonable--if I wanted perfection I would use a flatbed at higher resolution. What got me with this scanner, and the same problem happens with the ix-500 scanning stacks of photos is that pictures get skewed. No matter how carefully you load a stack of photos some of them are gonna to come through at an angle. Perhaps it has something to do with the nature of photographs but they tend to slide as they are fed through. It can mean a little extra work in Lightroom to straighten them; sometimes they need to be rescanned. Not a big problem but a nuisance. Some reviewers complained about the need to almost constantly clean the scanner; I didn't find it that bad although occasional pictures would come through with vertical lines from specs of dust. Again, it doesn't take long to rescan but it can be a nuisance if you are trying to keep photos in order. This was an expensive scanner; it turned out to be able to scan a lot of photos in a fairly expeditious manner without too many problems. Not sure that it was that much better than the ix-500 which is priced a little lower.

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• R.

  Just WOW - what a great machine

  Its an expensive machine but its performance is fantastic. I scanned 200 packs of photos in a week or so (of casual scanning not full time). I'm scanning on 600dpi and it scans a pack in, say, 1 minute. So fast that you I'm the slow element in the process. I've had no problems with dirty scan heads, perhaps because my photos are in their original packs, not being pulled out of an album, or sitting loose, so they aren't that dirty. I've cleaned twice because the machine prompts me, but I've seen no evidence of an issue.So after two weeks I'm done. What a great machine. I'm going to loan it out to friends now so they can catch up with their digitisation.

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