Review: The Epson Perfection V100 Photo Scanner

If you've got a backlog of family photos and slides -- or you want to experiment with digital scrapbooking, and don't want to spend a lot on equipment -- the Epson Perfection V100 Photo could be the right choice for you.

To begin with, the Epson Perfection V100 Photo offers a nice, clean design. Four button give immediate access to Scan, PDF, E-Mail, and Copy. The cover pulls out neatly to accommodate wider materials. The V100 can scan up to letter-sized documents, and comes with an included insert for scanning film strips and slides.

Installation is reasonably simple -- you first install the driver and other software from the included CD (although be careful -- the default is to install all the included software, and you may not want it all). Then plug in the included USB cable, and you're ready to go.

How well you go -- and the quality of your scans -- depends on how you use the included scan software. There are three different modes: Auto, for those who don't want to work at scanning; Home, which offers a number of ways to tweak your images; and Pro, which lets you do it all yourself. I tried them on an old, faded color photo that looked as if it had been shot through a red filter.

Trying Different Modes

Auto mode, which I tried first, was certainly simple; however, while the resulting image was passable, it wasn't impressive.

Both Home and Pro modes let you preview the image and tweak it a bit before you do the final scan. In Home mode, I was able to play with color restoration, backlight correction, and dust removal, among others. I was able to improve on the previous scan -- but only slightly.

However, Pro mode really made the difference. I was able to adjust not only brightness, contrast, saturation, and color balance, but do tone correction, histogram adjustment, and other fixes. I was even able to save my adjustments for other, similarly problematic photos. The resulting image was quite satisfactory.

(If you want to see the differences in the three modes -- and the original photo that they were trying to fix -- check out our Image Gallery

Negatives And Positives

If you want to scan negatives, it takes a little (but not much) preparation. You pull out the document mat that protects the upper light source, put your negatives or slides into the included holder, and place it on the glass. The scanner did a reasonably good job with several different negatives, although it hiccuped a bit with a color film strip that had darkened (I was able to scan the strip in grayscale).

There were a couple of other minor misses along the way. Because the Auto mode is so basic, it doesn't show whether it thinks you're scanning a photo or a negative. As a result, when I accidentally tried to scan a photo while it was expecting a negative, I got a rather cryptic error message. This wouldn't be a problem if the menu indicated up front what type of source material it was expecting.

At just under $100, the Perfection V100 is at the low end of the Epson line of photo scanners. And while it doesn't have some of the snazzier add-ons like automatic film strip readers, if you're looking for a low-cost way to scan your family photos, the Epson Perfection V100 Photo is an excellent way to do it.

Specs

Scanner Type: Flatbed color image scanner

Hardware Resolution: 3200 x 9600 dpi

Color Bit Depth: 48-bit internal/external

Maximum Read Area: 8.5" x 11.7"

Scanning Speed: Monochrome: up to 14.6 msec/line. Color: up to 14.6 msec/line

Price: $99.99