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

I wish I could give this 10 stars. Being the family historian by default, I spend much of my spare time scanning everyone's old photos. When I first heard about this gem, I ordered it immediately and I could not be more pleased about the time it saves me. It scans faster than our office copy machine makes copies. That alone is worth 5 stars. It also copies the back of the photo if there is anything written on it. PRICELESS! Then it auto adjusts the photos (white balance and color) which saves me hours of Photoshopping to do the same. It even lets you name them as you scan them. I can't say enough positive things about this smart gadget, and how many years it is probably going to save me. Now if only someone could come up with a time saver for taking all the photos out of the old sticky photo albums!! :)

Positive reviews are spot on. The unit churns through piles of photos 30 at a time, front and back, without fuss. The accuracy is good and the colors are pleasing. I use 600 DPI. Yes photos scanned one at a time on a flatbed with specialized software and post scan processing on Photoshop come out slightly better. However "slightly" is the key word here. The FF-640 scans are perfect for all but the most demanding applications and much more than good enough for family viewing online. If you have hundreds of old photos to scan for routine archiving and display this is the scanner you need.

Occasionally there is a white line on the scan. This is dust that lands on the glass over the imager. Just wipe down the rollers and glass in the unit and it will be gone.

Another reviewer recommended the Fujitsu. These are also excellent scanners. I have the Scansnap s1500, the prior model, and it is wonderful for documents. However it is not designed for photos and the rollers leave a crease in my pictures that shows up on the scan. This is not the case with the Epson.

This scanner is pretty fast. I have over 7k prints of all sizes (remember the 126 size?) and it does scan them pretty fast specially at the 300 dpi setting. If I was going to use a flatbed scanner, it would have taken me weeks (months) to do.
Now, what are the gotcha's.
- For the price of this scanner, a better software package should have been included. The included software is very basic.
- I worry about the latch mechanism, I hear this loud thump/crack noise when I need to open to clear a jam
- I haven't been able to get sharp pictures no matter what I do, they are ok but not what I would like to see or hoped for
- You get only 2 scan settings, 300 or 600. I wish you could have more settings, like 150, 200

Scanner setting, now they are my own subjective choices and may not be optimal for your liking
- dpi setting, I prefer the 300 dpi, IMHO the 600 dpi setting blurs the pictures. Depending on your prints, I think they are not done higher than 300 dpi for most prints.
- Don't set any enhancements, use a 3rd party software to enhance the pictures
- Don't load too may prints, IMHO they jam the scanner. Loading smaller batches seem to work better. I do the playing card tricks: fan the pictures, hit the smaller edge in a hard surface to keep them tight and aligned

Overall, not looking at the price, I think it is a good purchase and a big time saver.
For extra sharp pictures use a good flatbed scanner or a negative film scanner.

Update. After using it to scan close to 8000 prints. A couple of comment
- You don't get the same quality scans as with even a cheapie CanonScan LIDE220, Good for most scans but if you want a better scan use a manual scanner for selected prints.
- Some of the scan, specially people portraits, have an elongated top part. Some people looks like "Coneheads". Ended up doing small batches and checking the scans before continuing.
- Smaller batches work better
- Use the playing card technique, tap them against a hard surface to make the batch aligned, tap them on the short and long side. I also fan them like playing cards to be sure they are not sticking.
- Keep the scanner glass and rollers clean
- For most prints, 600 dpi seems to make them a bit blurry (not what I was expecting). With a manual scanner I find that the best overall setting (for an average print) is 200 dpi with no enhancements/corrections. But this unit is 300 or 600 dpi only.

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.

The best thing out there for scanning photos. I just finished scanning over 30,000 photos at 600 dpi. Pretty amazing little machine. The auto enhancement doesn't really work for properly exposed good photos but it does wonders for heavily faded photos. I bought the Brother version that looked very similar but it wouldn't feed photos reliably. They need to make something like this for slides and negatives. I would buy one of those instantly. It fed everything from small school photos to 8 by 10's reliably. Toward the end of 30,000 scans I started getting some weird artifacts see attached photo but cleaning the rollers fixed that. If you have a lot of photos to scan this is easy and much cheaper than sending them out.

Feature Product

World's Fastest Personal Photo Scanner (1) - scan thousands of photos as fast as 1 photo per second at 300 dpi (2)
Preserve Your Priceless Photos - SafeTouch Technology for worry-free scanning up to 8.5" wide, plus postcards, Polaroid photos and panoramas
Second-Generation Epson FastFoto Software - Scan, Restore, Organize and Share precious memories; offers intelligent file organization tools.Scanning Speed:Photo Scan Speed (4 x 6 inches landscape): 80 ppm/160 ipm2 (300 dpi color)Document Scan Speed (Letter size): 45 ppm/90 ipm4 (300 dpi color)
Flexible Scanning - offers modes for easy sharing (300 dpi), archiving (600 dpi TIFF) and enlarging (1200 dpi (4)); handles multiple sizes in one batch
Powerful Document Scanning - includes Epson ScanSmart Software with OCR; scan receipts, tax records, wills and more, up to 45 ppm/90 ipm (5)
Operating Temperature:41 ° to 95 °F (5 ° to 35 °C),Humidity:15-80% (no condensation),Scanner Features:Auto enhancement, Color restoration, Red-eye reduction, De-skew, Crop, Rotate
Weight:8.2 lb (product only),Dimensions:11.7" x 6.7" x 6.9" (storage) (W x D x H),Color Bit Depth:30-bit internal / 24-bit external
Minimum System Requirements:Windows 10 (32-bit, 64-bit),Windows 7 (32-bit, 64-bit) Windows 8/8.1 (32-bit, 64-bit),Mac OS X 10.11.x - macOS 10.13.x
Standard Connectivity:SuperSpeed USB 3.0,Wireless 802.11 b/g/n6
NOTE: Please refer to the user manual before use

Description

Preserve what’s priceless with the FastFoto FF-680W — the World’s Fastest Personal Photo Scanner (1). Scan thousands of photos — as fast as 1 photo per second at 300 dpi (2). SafeTouch Technology offers worry-free scanning for virtually any size, including postcards and Polaroid photos. Second-generation Epson FastFoto Software makes everything easy, with convenient photo editing and smart file organization tools. Offering the ultimate in versatility, the FF-680W features a variety of modes for quick sharing, archiving and enlargements — plus documents, too. Additional features include Easy Auto-Upload to cloud services (3) and Single-Step Technology for 2-sided scanning.

1. As compared to other personal/consumer photo scanners, generally defined as photo scanners priced under $1,000 USD (MSRP).
2. Based on average speed from start of scan to end of feeding, scanning thirty-six 4" x 6" photos at 300 dpi in landscape orientation.
3. Internet connection and active Dropbox or Google Drive account required.
4. Interpolated resolution is the doubling of the optical resolution using a software algorithm to increase dpi.
5. Based on letter-sized scans at 300 dpi in Black-and-White, Grayscale or Color Mode, using the USB interface.
6. Wirelessly scan, scan to the cloud, PCs or Mac with Epson FastFoto software and Epson ScanSmart software, installed on the connected Windows PC or Mac; wirelessly scan to smartphones or tablets (Android/iOS devices) via the Epson DocumentScan App. Internet access required.
7. For convenient and reasonable recycling options, visit our official site.
8. SmartWay is an innovative partnership of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that reduces greenhouse gases and other air pollutants and improves fuel efficiency.

Let me start by saying this scanner was not my first choice. I wanted to digitize 20 years worth of family snapshots and I wanted to do it cheaply so I bypassed this scanner for a ClearClick 20 MP QuickConvert Photo scanner that ran around $150 or so. My bad. The ClearClick scanner was of cheap build quality, had no auto feed and the quality of the scan was remarkably bad so I sent it back immediately and decided, "you get what you pay for," bit the bullet and bought the Epson FF-640...

Huge difference. The Epson scanner is fast and the quality is miles above the cheap ClearClick. I got through stacks of 30 photos in about a minute each with the Epson FF-640, so my final tally of 4200 photos went remarkably quickly. I thought this would take me months and months but I'm done after just a few weeks and my project time was really under 12 hours total. The most time consuming part of the process was manually sorting the prints to remove duplicates or getting the prints out of albums. Tip: I also sorted the originals by vertical or horizontal orientation so I wouldn't have to rotate the images electronically after scanning.

Overall I'm very happy with the scanner. I set it up to scan to a higher resolution than the default and those settings were sticky so I never had to go back and set it up again once I got started. The scans appeared a bit dark in the shadows but as that was a consistent property I plan to run these all through Adobe Lightroom and batch correct. The auto feed is indispensable and is easy to adapt to different sized originals (up to 8.5" wide I believe).

I switched to all digital photography many years ago due to the high cost of film and photo processing and the ease of digital photography. For years, though, I have wanted to scan my old print photos and convert them to digital files for permanent archiving. In the past I have used a flatbed scanner for scanning photos, but it is just too slow and cumbersome to scan a large number of photos in a timely fashion. I own a Fujitsu ix500 ScanSnap scanner that quickly scans both photos and documents that I use mainly for document scanning, so I was quite interested to see how the Epson FastFoto FF-640 scanner would compare.

The scanner sent to me for review arrived well-packaged with firm Styrofoam protection to prevent damage. The size of the scanner is not large at all, and it is pretty much the same size as the Fujitsu ix500 scanner. Included with the scanner are instructions for setting it up, a power supply with cable, a USB cable to connect it to your computer, a small cleaning cloth, and a transparent scanning carrier sheet for scanning of more delicate or oddly shaped photos. Oddly, unlike any other scanner I have owned, no installation disc is included, and you are directed to Epson’s web site to download the necessary scanning software to use the scanner. This is really my biggest criticism of this product. At this price point there is no excuse for not providing a software CD with the scanner. I hope Epson will make this change in future production.

The only assembly necessary to operate the scanner is to snap in the top photo/document feed tray into the top of the scanner. This was a somewhat awkward process, and it took a few tries before I could get it to snap into place. Once snapped into place, though, it was quite secure. You have to download and run the software installation before connecting the scanner to your computer. There is a basic installation software package that gets you started. Once you have installed the basic software and connected the scanner you can download additional software to add OCR functionality and features for greater scanning configuration. It is well worth the time to download the added software , and it is a free download. After downloading and running the installation software it will direct you to attach the scanner to the computer to finish the software installation. You have to turn the scanner on by pressing the power button in order for this to occur. After completing the software installation you are ready to scan. I had no difficulty installing the software on a desktop computer running Windows 10 Professional, 64 bit.

I scanned some standard 4x6 inch photos and a slightly larger photo to try out the scanner. The basic photo software has a default setting of 300 dpi resolution, but this can be adjusted up to 600 dpi. Using the upgraded software, though, you can scan up to 1200 dpi. The higher the resolution you select the longer it takes to scan, although even at 1200 dpi it scanned a photo in only a couple of seconds. At 300 and 600 dpi the scanning speed is much faster. This is an extremely fast scanner and scans photos significantly faster than my Fujitsu ScanSnap ix500 scanner. The only real time consuming aspect of scanning with this Epson scanner is making the configuration settings prior to scanning. Once you have done this, though, you can load up the top feeder with up to 30 photos and scan very quickly.

The software is a little clunky and confusing to use. It takes a while to get it figured out, especially in trying to define where you want files saved and how you want them named. The software remembers those settings, so if you want to change resolution, the name for scanned photos/documents, or location to be saved you have to go back and change the configuration settings before each scanning session. In that aspect, my Fujitsu scanner software is far superior as it is simpler to use. Where the Epson FastFoto software excels, though, is in its ability to enhance photos for you. You can do this either manually or have the software do it automatically for you while it scans. You also have the option to have the software save both an unenhanced and enhanced photo automatically so if the enhanced photo is not to your liking you won’t have to re-scan. The photos I scanned for the purpose of this review were older, slightly faded photos. They looked far better with the software enhancement, which was impressive.

One thing not advertised prominently about this scanner is it can also scan documents up to a full standard 8-1/2 by 11 inch page. It also does both front and back image scanning, which is great for documents that are two-sided. These can be saved as either an image file or a pdf file by adjusting the configuration settings. If you download and install the software upgrades you can create searchable pdf files with the scanner. The scanner documentation advises you not to scan items printed on thermal printer paper, though, which is a drawback as many receipts are printed on thermal paper.

There are some drawbacks to this Epson scanner when compared with Fujitsu’s similar ix500 scanner. As mentioned early on, there is no software installation disc provided with the Epson scanner which is really inexcusable at this price point. The Epson scanner design leaves the top opening of the scanner exposed. You will need to use a cover of some sort to prevent dust from gathering in the scanner (Fujitsu’s scanner has a folding lid that covers that opening). The FastFoto software is somewhat clunky and confusing, although it does offer a much wider range of scan configuration and photo correction features that are superior to the Fujitsu product. The biggest drawback is the Epson FastFoto scanner costs about $250 more than the Fujitsu ix500 scanner. Neither the Epson FastFoto or the Fujitsu ix500 scanner can scan negatives, so you will need to look elsewhere if you desire that feature.

Overall, the Epson Fast Foto FF-640 scanner is a lightning fast scanner that does a very nice job of scanning photos and documents, including business cards and credit cards. It is significantly faster than the Fujitsu ix500 ScanSnap scanner, which is also a very fast scanner, but the Epson scanner also costs a great deal more. For scanning primarily photos, though, the Epson FastFoto scanner would be a better choice if you have lots of photos to scan and want automatic image enhancement as the Epson FastFoto does this very easily and with lightning speed. The Fujitsu scanner is better suited for document scanning, and while it can scan photos it lacks the scanning resolution and image enhancement features that Epson offers with its scanner. For primarily document scanning, though, I think the Fujitsu ix500 scanner is simpler to use and does a better job of helping to organize scanned documents at a much lower cost. If you plan to scan lots of both photos and documents then the Epson FastFoto scanner may be the best choice if its high price is not a deterrent.

This scanner is a game changer. Easy to set up, even easier to use. As your pix are flying through the rollers, a copy of the back of the pic is also saved as a separate file (captures names, dates, etc.). Also, if you choose, the scanner will enhance your photos (just basic optimization of each picture, or removal of red eye). I have been using a flatbed scanner until now and can tell you that after switching to the FastFoto 640, I can accomplish exponentially more scanning & archiving; it's not even close. Excellent job Epson--I have thousands of family photos to capture, and this device has given me the incentive and the confidence to go ahead and tackle those huge boxes of old family photos up in the attic! If Amazon allowed a 6th star I would award it to Epson for this amazing device! get one.

Overall I am happy with it, however two things that take away one star:

Fist, software is too basic. I would have liked the ability to save photos as TIF - granted not an issue for most people but would have been nice to have. Also, there is no dust removal option - once again would have been nice to have (although not sure if possible with feeder scanner). Another annoyance is that sometimes photos that get scanned appear in the center of a large grey rectangle - I think sometimes scanner fails to detect actual dimensions of the photograph. Usually cleaning it and restarting takes care of this.

Finally, the glass gets dirty easily and you need to constantly clean the glass bed to avoid vertical streaks in photos. As in clean every 20 photos or so and you have to scrub hard. Now this is common to any scanner or fax machine with a document feeder, so no suprise.
Interestingly, the streaks seem to depend on what photo paper you are putting in. I would get almost no streaks on matte photos and also glossy photos printed in Asia, however photos printed in North America were printed usually on sticky-ish paper that drags dust onto the scanner glass, as such with such paper you have to constantly wipe the glass. Not really the scanner's fault, so I didn't knock of a star for that, but thought I'd mention it so that people have realistic expectations.

Had lots of trouble trying to download the software off Epson's site. Ended up calling them and they said they were hearing from a lot of people with the same issue. He told us to download the Scanner Driver and Utility software and the Standalone Utility software separately. After doing that it all worked! Love the scanner. The scanned photos are better than the originals especially if you use the "enhanced" feature.

October 4, 2018 Just an update to again say how wonderful this scanner is. I love how it's so easy to use and so fast. I just keep looking for more things to scan!

October 15, 2018 Another update...Do not make the guides too tight against the photos when placing them in the scanner. If you do you could get numerous faint lines in the photos.

Cirips

Saturday, April 6, 2019