Plustek Photo Scanner – ephoto Z300, Scan 4×6 Photo in 2sec, Auto Crop and Deskew with CCD Sensor. Support Mac and PC
| Weight: | 1.48 kg |
| Dimensions: | 28.96 x 16 x 15.75 cm; 1.48 Kilograms |
| Brand: | Plustek |
| Model: | Z300 |
| Batteries Included: | No |
| Manufacture: | Plustek |
| Dimensions: | 28.96 x 16 x 15.75 cm; 1.48 Kilograms |
I bought this as I’d decided to digitise all my photos and then moving onto all my parents old photos. It’s quite a big project with thousands of photos to go through. I wouldn’t have even considered starting this project if I’d have to use a flat bed scanner which would have taken ages.
Each photo is scanned in only couple of seconds. From there you can edit the photo- crop change colour /brightness etc and then Isave it into my computer picture files. I found the red eye correction tool didn’t work unfortunately, and would have liked a bit more photo editing ability. You only seem to be able to put 50 photos through at once before the machine stops and blinks orange at you – you have to save the photos and move them to another place- which took me some time to realise. I have used the 300dpi setting for everything- when I did try and use the 600dpi for a professional photo – the quality looked much worse than the normal 300 setting-I don’t know what I was doing wrong there!
I’m really pleased with the scanner overall – whilst fairly expensive- it is preserving my precious photos for generations to come!
This is a smart looking, compact machine. The photos slide through quickly and easily. Set up using the CD on my PC was easy. Not so easy to set up on the laptop, I had to download the software, and needed to check out the online ‘how to’ video, but got it sorted with a little help from the chatline. There are several facilities for enhancing the photos once they are on the computer. I haven’t tried them all yet! But so far, very pleased.
Great scanner but let down by the software especially if your on a Mac. Other than scanning it, displaying the scan and export pretty well nothing else works. I would imagine that at this price software would work for windows and mac users but feel somewhat short changed. Luckily I can import into Photoshop etc for even simple things like rotation but surely things should be better fixed before going on sale. That said it does the job wonderfully and fast and colours are exactly as what you are scanning from no more, no less. If you understand its limitations and remember to stop at 50 scans calibrate and then continue I have come across no problems. In the short few weeks I have had the scanner I have scanned nearly 4000 photos without any problems.
he fastest way to scan photos i have found! Quality good at 300dpi and even better at 600 dpi although a little slower but that’s still fast! Good software and good for printed newspaper magazine images with mori patten removal – very impressed and it’s done it’s job
I very rarely leave reviews but I have been so impressed with this scanner I had to come on and leave a good review. It is so unbelievably fast I am scanning about 10 images per minute, which is a god send as I have over 2,000 images to scan. It was very easy to install, just a few clicks, and the images can simply be saved to any folder on your computer. I couldn’t recommend this scanner any more highly if you have a large number of family photos you would like to convert to digital.
Great scanner but let down by the software especially if your on a Mac. Other than scanning it, displaying the scan and export pretty well nothing else works. I would imagine that at this price software would work for windows and mac users but feel somewhat short changed. Luckily I can import into Photoshop etc for even simple things like rotation but surely things should be better fixed before going on sale. That said it does the job wonderfully and fast and colours are exactly as what you are scanning from no more, no less. If you understand its limitations and remember to stop at 50 scans calibrate and then continue I have come across no problems. In the short few weeks I have had the scanner I have scanned nearly 4000 photos without any problems.
his is so easy to use and produces good quality scans of photographs.
Very quick to scan each photo which makes backing up old photo albums a pleasure.
will even take photos on backing board
I wanted something to convert boxes of photos to digital. The reviews were a bit mixed but I went for it. The quality is fine for converting normal pictures, the auto feed is certainly quick. As noted elsewhere the software is a bit last century and there’s bit of drag and drop to do but I’ve found it fine for getting pictures into Mac Photos. If you have lots of ordinary photos to convert its a great buy.
I bought this to digitise a box full of old photographs that I’d been meaning to scan for years. I’ve had scanners for years, but the thought of putting each photo on, one by one, and then cropping etc meant that I’d never got around to doing many scans.
This is a very simple concept, executed very well. Setup is simple, remove a couple of tapes, plug it in and load the software. That’s it.
Then, simply place your photos ‘face down’ into the scanner, 2 seconds later, they appear on the screen, cropped to size, straightened, and ready to save.
If I had to make one slight grumble, it would be that after every 60 photos you need to stop and save the ones you’ve scanned, then start the next batch. It’s not a great hardship, but it does slow down the process of scanning a large number of photographs in a single sitting. Fix that little gripe, and you’ve got the perfect solution!
I bought this to digitise a box full of old photographs that I’d been meaning to scan for years. I’ve had scanners for years, but the thought of putting each photo on, one by one, and then cropping etc meant that I’d never got around to doing many scans.
This is a very simple concept, executed very well. Setup is simple, remove a couple of tapes, plug it in and load the software. That’s it.
Then, simply place your photos ‘face down’ into the scanner, 2 seconds later, they appear on the screen, cropped to size, straightened, and ready to save.
If I had to make one slight grumble, it would be that after every 60 photos you need to stop and save the ones you’ve scanned, then start the next batch. It’s not a great hardship, but it does slow down the process of scanning a large number of photographs in a single sitting. Fix that little gripe, and you’ve got the perfect solution!
I have had this scanner 2 days and have already scanned 990 photos, it is easy to use and scans fast, saving the photos is also easy and you can edit photos before you save them to file, overall it is a great little scanner I would recommend this scanner to anyone it does what it says on the box and is going to save me hundreds of pounds by scanning the photos myself, I am a very satisfied customer.
Initially had a few problems setting this up as I have windows 8.1. However the seller did send a script with the item which explained how to resolve the issue for my version of windows.
Once installed the product works very well and scans very quickly. I used this to scan about 2000 photographs in about 2 ( very long days). Admittedly, getting the photos ready for scanning took much longer than the actual scanning process. Product was fast and quality of scans were good enough for my purposes. Excellent product which (based on my experience) I can recommend.
This scanner meant I could get through a massive batch of photos quickly. You have to save your batch after about 50+ photos, but it is still quicker than most scanners. Keep an eye on the scanners lens though as it is easy not to see that your have debris on it. I found that when I checked the photos in Adobe Lightroom some had streaks. I also found that blacks and shadows scanned very dark and when trying to recover these it did create a lot of photographic noise. That said, I am still happy with it, unless someone can find a better fast scanner for this price.
This scanner meant I could get through a massive batch of photos quickly. You have to save your batch after about 50+ photos, but it is still quicker than most scanners. Keep an eye on the scanners lens though as it is easy not to see that your have debris on it. I found that when I checked the photos in Adobe Lightroom some had streaks. I also found that blacks and shadows scanned very dark and when trying to recover these it did create a lot of photographic noise. That said, I am still happy with it, unless someone can find a better fast scanner for this price.
Very easy to set up a new is an excellent product. The quality of the scans are very good and this can be adjusted if necessary. Only takes a few seconds to scan each photograph, so saves a lot of time if you have many photographs to scan. I must’ve saved hours.
Would definitely recommend to anybody.
I bought this in order to digitise hundreds of old prints. It is quick to scan 6 x 4 prints at 300 setting but be careful to not feed the next one before the previous print has fully scanned. It seems the software will only let you edit photos before you save them so this slows the process. Post save access to the editing software would be great. Also there is no batch editing feature which is a shame – a pack of those old photos may all need the same adjustments and having to do them one at a time is a pain. Some help files on what the editing categories do would also be helpful.
Bought this to covert a lot of old photos. Set it on 600dpi and off it went. Very impressed, easy to use. Fast scanning. I thoroughly recommend it.
Super easy to set up and it just ploughs through every kind, size and thickness of photo without a hiccup. Very happy and would highly recommend this product. It deserves wider recognition. It is not a high resolution commercial scanner but rather a perfect tool for the average family to digitise all of those albums of pictures in the cupboard!
Nothing to dislike, to scan a photograph on my printer, under the desktop and out of my line of vison is hit or miss and takes about two minutes per scan. With Plustek Photo Scanner, I can sort 49 photos, mainly to make sure they feed in the right way up and centrally, in about four minutes, save the to a folder and start again.
I am disabled and have very little feeling in my fingers, I was happily able to scan 700 photos of varying sizes in well under an hour.
Managed to scan over 3000 printed photos in 24hrs.
However the cost of the machine is rather high. Ease of use and the way it works out if you scan a photo wonky it comes out correctly is very clever. I have finished with it for now and it is just boxed up sat in storage! Shame….wish I should have just hired one! Would have been much cheaper option.
if you wish to archive a large number of holiday snaps for easy access then you can scan at 1 4×6 photo every 2 seconds (at 300 DPI). If you up the scanning resolution (600 DPI) then each scan takes about 5 times as long. You have to insert each photo manually but you can quickly get into a rhythm and scan very quickly compared to say a typical flatbed scanner (which will typically scan at a higher resolution however). What’s really useful is the photo correction software that has a number of simple correction options which can perform wonders on older damaged photos.
That’s the good news. On the more negative side, as others have said, on macOS (haven’t tried Windows), you can only scan 60 photos at a time before you save them in some form. This slows down scanning but, more problematic is the fact that every now and again, the software crashes for no obvious reason. This can frustratingly mean a good 15 minutes of scanning might need to be repeated. Sometimes the software recovers the scans but usually, it doesn’t.
All in all a very useful machine but don’t expect professional results but definitely a decent way of archiving a large number of snaps.
if you wish to archive a large number of holiday snaps for easy access then you can scan at 1 4×6 photo every 2 seconds (at 300 DPI). If you up the scanning resolution (600 DPI) then each scan takes about 5 times as long. You have to insert each photo manually but you can quickly get into a rhythm and scan very quickly compared to say a typical flatbed scanner (which will typically scan at a higher resolution however). What’s really useful is the photo correction software that has a number of simple correction options which can perform wonders on older damaged photos.
That’s the good news. On the more negative side, as others have said, on macOS (haven’t tried Windows), you can only scan 60 photos at a time before you save them in some form. This slows down scanning but, more problematic is the fact that every now and again, the software crashes for no obvious reason. This can frustratingly mean a good 15 minutes of scanning might need to be repeated. Sometimes the software recovers the scans but usually, it doesn’t.
All in all a very useful machine but don’t expect professional results but definitely a decent way of archiving a large number of snaps.
This scanner is easy to set up, simple to use and lightening quick. However the scanner developed a fault in the first month where the unit wouldn’t take the photo in but instead gave out a loud buzzing noise. The support is 24/7 so I gave it a go. I didn’t get to the bottom of the fault after 15 minutes of online support, it was after midnight over here in the UK so I resumed my online session in the morning and was promptly put through to the agency that deals with the support for Plustek. After less than a minute on the phone to them the diagnosis was, “its faulty we’ll send you a replacement scanner”. The RIL was completed and faulty scanner sent back and replacement scanner was with me later the same week, excellent service.
This scanner is easy to set up, simple to use and lightening quick. However the scanner developed a fault in the first month where the unit wouldn’t take the photo in but instead gave out a loud buzzing noise. The support is 24/7 so I gave it a go. I didn’t get to the bottom of the fault after 15 minutes of online support, it was after midnight over here in the UK so I resumed my online session in the morning and was promptly put through to the agency that deals with the support for Plustek. After less than a minute on the phone to them the diagnosis was, “its faulty we’ll send you a replacement scanner”. The RIL was completed and faulty scanner sent back and replacement scanner was with me later the same week, excellent service.
It is not often that I write a review on Amazon, however I thought I would for this product. Being a tech enthusiast I am often disappoint that a product does not live up to the claims a company makes. This is not the case for this product. It is superb. I’ve dabbled in digitising the family photos for years. The process has either been too time consuming when using a flatbed scanner, especially as you would need to crop each photo, or the quality just wasn’t there. This device automatically straightens and crops your photos. Plus it takes just over 1 second to scan one photo. Within a couple of hours in and I have already scanned 400+ photos. One week later and I have finished all of the photos. It’s easy to use and quick.
Excellent product even using at 300DPI (two seconds for a 6×4 picture).
Very simple to install and to feed the pictures through the scanner.
As with all scanned images from any scanner, you may need to tinker with the colour balance and exposure but that is no issue with the free software you can find on the web. I use FastStone. The Ephoto Z300 is highly recommended
I would certainly recommend this scanner, excellent value for money & scanning photos could not be easier.
We had over 2500 old photos to scan, it was so quick & easy, Quality of scan is excellent & the software to enhance & restore old faded photos is brilliant!
I have just started using this scanner to copy family photos for my mum’s memory book. The unit is virtually ‘plug and play’. I had no problem with downloading and installing the software. This has enabled me to tweak the quality of some very old photos to produce very usable prints. I have only scanned at the lower quality option so far and it takes only a few seconds to scan each photo. I am very pleased with this product.
I purchased this photo scanner to replace my old scanner. Installing the software onto my laptop took me a few goes but I have to admit I am not really technology minded, that said I did manage it and I am up and running! The scanner is brillant, it’s speedy, has the programmes to correct the photos colour, exposure etc but alas not my poor photography skill .
Whilst not the cheapest scanner it does what I need it to do and I am therefore very happy.
This scanner is great, it is small, compact, easy to install, easy to use, scans very quick even at 600DPI which is the same quality scan as a flat bed.
The one thing is, the auto crop and rotate will mess up from time to time if you have an image with a lot of black. unlike the flat bed scanners which has a white inside lid, this has a black. If you have night time shots you will need to crop these yourself.
The other thing is, It will not scan thick images (Old school photos in them cardboard frames for example)
other than that I highly recommend this product especially to scan and digitalise all of your old photos as it does it with ease.
This scanner is great, it is small, compact, easy to install, easy to use, scans very quick even at 600DPI which is the same quality scan as a flat bed.
The one thing is, the auto crop and rotate will mess up from time to time if you have an image with a lot of black. unlike the flat bed scanners which has a white inside lid, this has a black. If you have night time shots you will need to crop these yourself.
The other thing is, It will not scan thick images (Old school photos in them cardboard frames for example)
other than that I highly recommend this product especially to scan and digitalise all of your old photos as it does it with ease.
Does the job very well. Miles quicker than a flatbed copier. You can really race through a pile of photos. The software’s a little bit clunky but is ok.
Copied DVD contents into a folder and then used that on non-DVD laptop – very easy and all worked first time. Scanning at 300dpi – photo just goes straight through – VERY quick and easy – my biggest problem is catching photo before it lands on the floor !
Scan quality very good – better than a negative scanner I have.
No damage to the photos (so far) and fine with different sizes and old black and white photos.
Scanning at 600dpi takes a lot longer for no real discernible difference on the (reasonable quality) displays I use – hence probably best to keep for important photos / where maximum “zooming” quality required.
Software settings a bit disjointed, but all there – just try clicking on everything / anything !
Overall MUCH faster and easier than any other method I tried so far (inc. negative scanners, etc.) and ideal for digitising lots of holiday photos, etc.
As long as it has a reasonable lifespan would buy again if/when required.
Copied DVD contents into a folder and then used that on non-DVD laptop – very easy and all worked first time. Scanning at 300dpi – photo just goes straight through – VERY quick and easy – my biggest problem is catching photo before it lands on the floor !
Scan quality very good – better than a negative scanner I have.
No damage to the photos (so far) and fine with different sizes and old black and white photos.
Scanning at 600dpi takes a lot longer for no real discernible difference on the (reasonable quality) displays I use – hence probably best to keep for important photos / where maximum “zooming” quality required.
Software settings a bit disjointed, but all there – just try clicking on everything / anything !
Overall MUCH faster and easier than any other method I tried so far (inc. negative scanners, etc.) and ideal for digitising lots of holiday photos, etc.
As long as it has a reasonable lifespan would buy again if/when required.
Great on laptop – wouldn’t install on desktop. Installshield error “you are have not enough space” incorrect.
Amber light on device – not blue. Tracked down to running .exe files problem. Solution:
From Command prompt (as administrator) run DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth
Takes a few minutes (progress shown as % done)
Knocked a couple of stars off the Easy to Install to highlight problem, probably a unfair, because it was a machine problem.
Amazing little thing … after getting the setup wrong ( and not scanning the config card and just scanning a normal photo… and then wondering why all the photos were coming out odd) … I managed to do it properly and I must say the quality is stunning, so easy and quick to scan and it even improves the images once scanned… Great stuff!
I have really liked this scanner when you compare to old flat-tops. If you have a lot of photos to scan then this really saves time and hassle – no need to line up the photo properly, just drop it into the feeder and away you go. There were some mixed reviews about this but mainly to do with scan quality and occasional white line on photos. I would agree that if you have high quality prints you may find the scan slightly less good but looking on most screens I doubt you would notice. The white line does occasionally occur on some scans but just re-scan and this usually goes away, or simply re-calibrate the scanner. The software that comes with the scanner is a bit basic but it does the job and is very easy to follow. I have hundreds or photos and I am very glad I bought this scanner.
Love it. Easy to set up, compact, very easy to use and so quick. Also the ability to edit photos. I have thousands of photos in albums that I am scanning.
brilliant device. Have approx 2200 old photos to scan.
First tried doing it on a flat bed scanner, 2 at a time.
Spent an entire evening and scanned 80 or so then list interest.
Bought this scanner a few minutes to install software (windows 10) and away you go.
Most photographs I have are apprx 7 byb5 inches.
Literally takes about 3 seconds to scan, and if you don’t put it in the scanner perfectly straight, the image is saved perfectly straight.
Working at a steady pace, 10 photographs a minute is easy peasy. I scanned the 2200 in 3 non rush evebing sessions.
Scan quality is great, default is 300 doi, which works well. It can scan at 600 dpi, however this sliws things down, and the saved images don’t seem to have noticeabley more detail.
Stonking piece of kit, highly recommended.
Now, does anyone know of something that will scan slide film as fast, i have over 6000 of those….
Hooray, I can scan my watercolour artworks up to A4 size! Instantly I can upload my art to my Amazon Handmade Shop.
I am very pleased with this product. I have been struggling to scan my family photos for 3 years using another device where you place each photo into a holder. This is very time-consuming. The Plustek Photo Scanner scans in a jiffy and automatically corrects orientation. The software provided allows you to do some basic image processing to restore old photos. I managed to scan my family photos in less than a week.
However, the biggest bonus for me is that it scans artworks well providing tiff and jpeg formats. Normally to get good scans I need to take my artworks to a professional printing company that will charge me as much as 10 for a good scan.
The only thing I would change about this product is to ask the manufacturer to provide a tray to receive the scanned photos otherwise you get a jumbled pile in front.
Hooray, I can scan my watercolour artworks up to A4 size! Instantly I can upload my art to my Amazon Handmade Shop.
I am very pleased with this product. I have been struggling to scan my family photos for 3 years using another device where you place each photo into a holder. This is very time-consuming. The Plustek Photo Scanner scans in a jiffy and automatically corrects orientation. The software provided allows you to do some basic image processing to restore old photos. I managed to scan my family photos in less than a week.
However, the biggest bonus for me is that it scans artworks well providing tiff and jpeg formats. Normally to get good scans I need to take my artworks to a professional printing company that will charge me as much as 10 for a good scan.
The only thing I would change about this product is to ask the manufacturer to provide a tray to receive the scanned photos otherwise you get a jumbled pile in front.
The machine works well once you have worked out how to get round the glitches on a Mac – perhaps it works better on a PC. It won’t make the individual folders it mentions but if I select all the scans and put them on the folder icon then they go into a folder I have in documents on my computer now. Took a while to work it out to do this. As I can’t make them into folders in the programme then I have to name them in my computer documents. Having said this I am very pleased with the speed of scanning and the results and it is a great time saver if you have lots of photos. Pity the software is not better to go with the design idea.
The software works but is (as others have said) a little clunky on the iMac. You don’t always seem to be able to edit or retouch the photo before moving it to the file folder you want. But that is not a priority for me.
Regarding re-touching the quick fix options are quite brutal with the scan but the initial quality is decent enough for you not to need to do this very often.
I scanned over 1000 in my first half day of use and for the ones that I really want in detail I can go back and rescan at 600dpi later.
So 5* for the hardware and perhaps 3* for the software.
The machine works well once you have worked out how to get round the glitches on a Mac – perhaps it works better on a PC. It won’t make the individual folders it mentions but if I select all the scans and put them on the folder icon then they go into a folder I have in documents on my computer now. Took a while to work it out to do this. As I can’t make them into folders in the programme then I have to name them in my computer documents. Having said this I am very pleased with the speed of scanning and the results and it is a great time saver if you have lots of photos. Pity the software is not better to go with the design idea.
The software works but is (as others have said) a little clunky on the iMac. You don’t always seem to be able to edit or retouch the photo before moving it to the file folder you want. But that is not a priority for me.
Regarding re-touching the quick fix options are quite brutal with the scan but the initial quality is decent enough for you not to need to do this very often.
I scanned over 1000 in my first half day of use and for the ones that I really want in detail I can go back and rescan at 600dpi later.
So 5* for the hardware and perhaps 3* for the software.
I finally decided to archive all the photos we have taken over the years and was using a flatbed scanner. This did a good job but was time consuming. 50 Photos would take just over an hour and I estimated that I had about 20000 photos on paper, at three hours a week this would take about 133 week or 5 years to do! When this dawned on me I wanted a better solution. This scanner was it. 50 photos now take 5 minutes! It straightens the photos and balances the colours. The scans are a better quality than my flatbed and I actually enjoy the process.
I cannot recommend this photo scanner enough!
I wanted to digitise a lot of historic photos and unlock them from shoe boxes !
While this looked expensive it works really well, saved me a laborious process of scanning with a desktop scanner and made me smile looking back at old photos and sharing them back with family members. Quality is good, and the auto-alignment and cropping made this really easy. Certainly one of my best purchases and if you have a lot of old photos it’s certainly worth the investment as it has saved so much time. I got through boes of photos in less than 1/10th of the time !!
Good purchase (and I normally don’t submit reviews !)
Using on Windows 10 ; the included software on a CD (!) did not work, so went direct to the site and RE downloaded; with a bit of extracting .bin files, it then worked seamless; just using the SCAN software (also supplied is editing software, but if your into editing there are far better programs available; the simple SCAN was easy to use and veiled GREAT results.
Compared to the nearest rival _Epson at 600!!! this is amazing value.
There are two setting HIGH and Normal, bearing in mind your prob just scanning old photos, I found the Normal was great, and scans at under 2 seconds per photo.
Simply drop the photo in, and the unit sucks then through with ease; you can save them where ever you tell it too (assuming you don’t want to edit) in multiple formats choices .jpeg . tiff etc
USB cable, power supply (with both UK & Euro connectors), calibration sheet, CD software!) everything is provided in a very well packaged box.
Aside of the minor software inconvenience, this is so easy to use, and has fantastic results.
I WOULD highly RECOMMEND.
Using on Windows 10 ; the included software on a CD (!) did not work, so went direct to the site and RE downloaded; with a bit of extracting .bin files, it then worked seamless; just using the SCAN software (also supplied is editing software, but if your into editing there are far better programs available; the simple SCAN was easy to use and veiled GREAT results.
Compared to the nearest rival _Epson at 600!!! this is amazing value.
There are two setting HIGH and Normal, bearing in mind your prob just scanning old photos, I found the Normal was great, and scans at under 2 seconds per photo.
Simply drop the photo in, and the unit sucks then through with ease; you can save them where ever you tell it too (assuming you don’t want to edit) in multiple formats choices .jpeg . tiff etc
USB cable, power supply (with both UK & Euro connectors), calibration sheet, CD software!) everything is provided in a very well packaged box.
Aside of the minor software inconvenience, this is so easy to use, and has fantastic results.
I WOULD highly RECOMMEND.
I never write reviews normally, but the Plustek Photo Scanner is so easy to use, fast and automatically adjusts the photos. I had previously used a flat bed scanner for photos but that was laborious in comparison. It also scans documents. So glad I bought this, not only time saving but a delight to use.
Decided to finally scan in all my old hard copy photos during lock down. Scanner is compact and easy to set up. Plug it in, install the software from the disk (I use windows) and start scanning. Takes all size photos as long as A4 or smaller, drop them through the slot and it takes about 2 seconds a photos. Software is simple – once you have scanned them, press save and it asks you where on your pc you want to save them. Couldn’t be simpler, I am delighted with this purchase.
I bought this purely to digitise 2 drawers full of photos. its did the job perfectly. what i thought was going to be a 1 week job took 1 long day. its amazingly fast. the colour reproduction was not perfect but very good considering the speed it processed the photos. i use the scanner for day to day work now as its great. i would highly recommend this product.
My only criticism is that the software looks a bit out of date now, but functions perfectly well.
This scanner does the job well. In lockdown I decided to do a job I had planned ages ago, namely scan and share old photos. This little scanner does the job nicely. The 50 scan per session before saving is no big hassle. The 300dpi scans are super quick. 600dpi takes quite a while but maybe useful for a few photos. I managed to wade through piles of family albums in a couple of days. The ephoto software is easy to use, although I’d prefer to touch up photos with Photoshop if needed.
Setting it up on my iMac was easy, just download the driver from the company site. It worked immediately. I have 15,000 old photographs and scanning was easy, just invert and drop into the feeder one by one. Allowing the previous one to complete. The scanner automatically corrects if not put in straight, the scan quality is excellent and the autocorrect photos was fantastic on rejuvenating some old washed out photos. If you raise the scanner onto a box and allow a drop for the photos into a tray you can scan several thousand at one sitting. Another great feature was saving a group of scans you can just add a new folder within Your master picture folder. I have had to reinstall the software once which is pretty good considering the data sizes being shifted around my Mac. I recommend you save scans into the same master photo folder on your Mac rather than saving in other outside folders. Once you save outside the finder your Mac might slow or freeze. You can easily move them after saving them in the master folder. I’ve nearly scanned and archived all my photos and can’t believe how easy it has been. Highly recommended, it is fantastic.
Setting it up on my iMac was easy, just download the driver from the company site. It worked immediately. I have 15,000 old photographs and scanning was easy, just invert and drop into the feeder one by one. Allowing the previous one to complete. The scanner automatically corrects if not put in straight, the scan quality is excellent and the autocorrect photos was fantastic on rejuvenating some old washed out photos. If you raise the scanner onto a box and allow a drop for the photos into a tray you can scan several thousand at one sitting. Another great feature was saving a group of scans you can just add a new folder within Your master picture folder. I have had to reinstall the software once which is pretty good considering the data sizes being shifted around my Mac. I recommend you save scans into the same master photo folder on your Mac rather than saving in other outside folders. Once you save outside the finder your Mac might slow or freeze. You can easily move them after saving them in the master folder. I’ve nearly scanned and archived all my photos and can’t believe how easy it has been. Highly recommended, it is fantastic.
I had previously scanned old photos with a hand-held device! If only this unit had been around earlier – I will now re-scan for improved quality. What I partcularly like is the speed of operation, the auto skew correction and the auto optimisation of the scan.
I got this unit to give me a project whilst stuck at home during the Coronavirus lockdown and have already captured a vast number of old snaps, some of them in poor condition.
I had none of the problems other users have mentioned about using with a Mac IOS. Scans can be sent direct to the Photos application with no bother at all.
Big advantage over flatbed is that the scans are automatically adjusted to the size of the photo. No cropping or adjusting the angle … all taken care of automatically.
My only disappointment would be that the Exif data is not saved to the image file. Other than that, 10/10.
Big advantage over flatbed is that the scans are automatically adjusted to the size of the photo. No cropping or adjusting the angle … all taken care of automatically.
My only disappointment would be that the Exif data is not saved to the image file. Other than that, 10/10.
Absolutely delighted with this – easy to use and so quick! Am whizzing through decades of old photos that I have been meaning to back up for years. Cannot really comment on how the quality compares with other, more expensive scanners but this is such good value for money that I would really recommend it to anyone who wants to ensure that they have copies of precious memories – not just photos but notes, letters, leaflets and cards -anything that you want to keep a copy of really!
We must have a zillion photo prints (slight exaggeration!) in albums taking up much needed cupboard space. I had always planned to digitise these but the thought of scanning each photo singley in our printer/scanner filled me with dread. Then I came across this specialist photo scanner when looking at other options.
It seemed to fit the job I had in mind and so I bought it. To say it is fast is an understatement! It was an easy set up and you can get it going in literally a few minutes. I have a MacPro (with the latest Catalina OS) which has no CD drive to insert the supplied CD which has the device drivers and software. However, this is was not a problem as you can download these from the manufacturer’s website.
You simply feed the photos in and hey presto they’re scanned onto your computer ready for storing into any folders you create. The only glitch I found is the software is a little buggy hence only four stars given for the review.
Definitely a recommended purchase for anyone with a similar task in mind.
We must have a zillion photo prints (slight exaggeration!) in albums taking up much needed cupboard space. I had always planned to digitise these but the thought of scanning each photo singley in our printer/scanner filled me with dread. Then I came across this specialist photo scanner when looking at other options.
It seemed to fit the job I had in mind and so I bought it. To say it is fast is an understatement! It was an easy set up and you can get it going in literally a few minutes. I have a MacPro (with the latest Catalina OS) which has no CD drive to insert the supplied CD which has the device drivers and software. However, this is was not a problem as you can download these from the manufacturer’s website.
You simply feed the photos in and hey presto they’re scanned onto your computer ready for storing into any folders you create. The only glitch I found is the software is a little buggy hence only four stars given for the review.
Definitely a recommended purchase for anyone with a similar task in mind.
Just received this today and have already scanned a load of photos. Think I’d reiterate what others have said. The hardware seems great and fairly solid. However, the software really has a rather ‘old’ clunky feel to it that I’d expect to see on WIndows 3.1 not windows 10!!! It works, it’s just clumsy and not very strealimed at all. Save features are not straightforward either. Otherwise, it would have had 5 stars
I bought the scanner to scan the hundreds of old photos I had not yet scanned and it has worked very well speed wise. I would have liked the scan to produce a larger file than the 600 dpi that it does but as I have no intention of printing the photos it is not a problem. The software is not as user friendly as it could be but once you get used to it it works fine. Overall I have been more than satisfied with the scanner.
A really good scanner. My HP flat bed all in one takes about 2 minutes to scan a photo at 600 dpi. This will do it in seconds. I reckon in scanning the thousands of photos that my late dad left me (& that was just the ones I wanted) it has sped up the process by more than 10 times, possibly even 20. Image quality is excellent & the app is easy to use. OK so it’s not cheap but an auto feed scanner is 3 or 4 times the price. Using the scanner hasn’t been entirely trouble free but overall it has done a superb job. The issues experienced have included occasional freezing of the app and some black patches on images but these were easily fixed by rescanning or cleaning the lens.
A really good scanner. My HP flat bed all in one takes about 2 minutes to scan a photo at 600 dpi. This will do it in seconds. I reckon in scanning the thousands of photos that my late dad left me (& that was just the ones I wanted) it has sped up the process by more than 10 times, possibly even 20. Image quality is excellent & the app is easy to use. OK so it’s not cheap but an auto feed scanner is 3 or 4 times the price. Using the scanner hasn’t been entirely trouble free but overall it has done a superb job. The issues experienced have included occasional freezing of the app and some black patches on images but these were easily fixed by rescanning or cleaning the lens.
Brilliant scanner for all those photos and paperwork. No ore lifting the lid up and down, just sheet feed up to 60 photos a time. Great quality, easy to set up and use. I was able to scan over 3000 photos over a 3 day period and put online for posterity. Well worth the money and to get those photos that are stored away out in the open for family to see.
I was able to rip through scanning my old photos, even on the highest quality setting. There were a few that I had to re-scan but that’s to be expected I guess. I really liked the feature that automatically positioned the pic to look level even when I put it in a bit angled. The colour of the scans were good as well. Overall, I am really happy with this.
If like me you have literally thousands of old photos collecting dust and you need to store them digitally – this machine although pricey – is the answer. Flatbed scanners are fine for a few but when you talk thousands this is the device. You simply drop each print in the top – even if they go in skew the software straightens them – and 300 dpi is indeed very fast 600dpi slower as you would expect but still very acceptable. A good buy.
Bought one of these to scans albums and albums of old photos
===Pros===
1. Easy to connect to laptop
2. Easy to feed in photos
3. Quality of output pretty good
4. Quite quick. Maybe 8 seconds for a regular photo; 30 seconds for a wedding album-sized photo
===Cons===
1. Only stores 50 photos at a time and then needs cache to be saved to elsewhere
2. Crops part of some photos, particularly if dark. Can be partially avoided by rotating photos; often worked on 5th or 6th attempt
3. Wireless might have been better. I got in a cable muddle occasionally
===Notes===
1. Has software built in for manipulating photos but I didn’t do much with this aspect
===Overall===
Has allowed me to scan all of my old photos across many weekends. Would happily recommend.
I used this the Z300 scanner to scan some old family photos. It is very efficient and auto crops so you don’t have to crop out white space – real time saver. Does all sorts of size photos up to A4. Only issues I had is that it made slightly dark photos/black and white photos even darker when scanning so I had to keep editing those photos to brighten them up which was a bit annoying. The other thing is that it took me forever to set the scanner up. Turns out it was pretty simple to set up but that the issue was the usb to scanner cable that was provided didn’t work which is why my computer wasn’t finding the scanner. After I used a similar cable from my electric keyboard it then all worked fine. Very disappointed to spend all that money on the scanner to find part of the product not working. Would still recommend this product but they should take care with their parts.
Great quality in standard mode and very quick to use. Software is excellent even if the photo goes into the machine at a crooked angle. It automatically crops and straightens.
I found dropping rather than placing photos into the machine prevented scanning ‘false starts’.
Most of the issues raised by other reviewers are prevented if you follow instructions and use the calibration sheet provided.
I bought a couple of scanners to digitalise my photo library, and neither of them worked with my Mac. This one, I literally plugged it in, ran a calibration sheet, and it was all set up! It’s so easy to use that even my 4 year old has been helping me with the scanning. I’m really happy with it, and would 100% recommend it.
The quick set up guide is very basic but is adequate.
Scanned quality matches my normal flatbed scanner but the speed is what will sell this product. Had a spare hour and managed to scan 100 photos! Goodbye flatbed scanner!! Will also handle irregular shapes & documents.
Where has this been all my life, when I think of the hours I have wasted with my old scanner! This is a fantastic piece of kit, very very easy to install and use. The photos fly through giving fantastic images to work with. I scan them onto my computer then I transfer them to my iPhoto file and edit them. I can’t tell you how quick and easy this is to use and would highly recommend it. It is a little pricey but worth every penny when you have a lifetime of photos that you want to save.
The design is slightly unconventional. Photos are drop-fed through a slot, and then are pulled through automatically and scanned. There are two resolutions selectable in software 300dpi, and 600dpi. At 300dpi, a scan is very fast, with a standard sized 6″x4″ photo taking under three seconds. At 600dpi, the same photo scans in about 24 seconds.
The scanner can also be used to scan things like receipts, which is handy, as receipts are often printed on thermal paper, which fades very quickly and is prone to surface damage rendering them illegible.
Configuration options are limited to resolution (300/600), Colour/Grey/Auto, and auto-crop/de-skew selection. This is fine, as this is intended to be a minimal-intervention device, just switch on and go. Colour scans were good quality. There is also an OCR capability for document reading, but I have not used this yet. Output scans can be saved in the usual way, or sent to social media, and online storage systems like Flickr and Google Drive. It would have been a nice touch if photo tags could have been entered as scans are saved, but there are other ways to do this.
For batch scans, the default root file name is the current date and time, though you can set your own (e.g. ‘Holiday 1996’).
For most of my scans, 300dpi is fine, as this gives me acceptable web quality results and an easily constructed ‘visual index’, so that I can rescan selected pictures at higher resolution if required. The 300dpi scanning speed is so fast that I can barely keep up with the flow rate. I have already scanned many hundreds of photographs in one day, which would have taken weeks before. For sheer speed, ease of use and time-saving, this is a winner.
Recommended.
The design is slightly unconventional. Photos are drop-fed through a slot, and then are pulled through automatically and scanned. There are two resolutions selectable in software 300dpi, and 600dpi. At 300dpi, a scan is very fast, with a standard sized 6″x4″ photo taking under three seconds. At 600dpi, the same photo scans in about 24 seconds.
The scanner can also be used to scan things like receipts, which is handy, as receipts are often printed on thermal paper, which fades very quickly and is prone to surface damage rendering them illegible.
Configuration options are limited to resolution (300/600), Colour/Grey/Auto, and auto-crop/de-skew selection. This is fine, as this is intended to be a minimal-intervention device, just switch on and go. Colour scans were good quality. There is also an OCR capability for document reading, but I have not used this yet. Output scans can be saved in the usual way, or sent to social media, and online storage systems like Flickr and Google Drive. It would have been a nice touch if photo tags could have been entered as scans are saved, but there are other ways to do this.
For batch scans, the default root file name is the current date and time, though you can set your own (e.g. ‘Holiday 1996’).
For most of my scans, 300dpi is fine, as this gives me acceptable web quality results and an easily constructed ‘visual index’, so that I can rescan selected pictures at higher resolution if required. The 300dpi scanning speed is so fast that I can barely keep up with the flow rate. I have already scanned many hundreds of photographs in one day, which would have taken weeks before. For sheer speed, ease of use and time-saving, this is a winner.
Recommended.
This is a great piece of kit for the money. It is very quick to scan documents and when I contacted the company they answered swiftly, helpfully and got it sorted. Highly recommend it.
Quick in scanning the few thousand photos I have. Only took a few nights (until I went to bed) for me to complete. Good quality scans. Well good enough for me.
The main weakness is the software, it’s obviously not top quality (at least on Mac OSX) since it’s rather clunky and has a number of bugs. I did try it on a Win 7 laptop but the screen was too poor to judge any corrections, so I am using it on a Mac with a colour calibrated screen.
The worst bug is that the software will scan up to the max of 60 pics, then you work through processing them and then it refuses to save them. So you restart the software and recall the whole batch. I now restart the software after each batch of 60 and the problem has gone away.
The software tools (mostly only using the white balance correction myself) can be brilliant or really poor, you just have to try on each photo and then undo if the effect is bad. The quality of some of the tools (ie the effect on the photo) is often very severe and coarse and renders many of the tools unusable (I’m used to using Lightroom for my DSLR hobby photos). So I only make very minimal tweaks – which is fine anyway because I have about 10,000 prints to scan and I don’t have the time to tweak each one – after all they are mostly snaps and not worth the effort.
It’s a good idea to occasionally lift the scanning cover and clean off the glass otherwise the auto-cropping feature (which otherwise works superbly) starts to leave black spaces at the top and bottom.
You have to learn a little bit from experience to avoid the bugs, but once done you can wizz through. I’ve done about 3,000 scans in a couple of days (after learning how to deal with the software issues).
The outcome is that the scanner IS good enough if you just want to store photos digitally so you have them for the future and save on storage space. I would not expect to print the scans in high quality in future or use it for critical or important photos or professionally. So for private casual use, it’s brilliant value.
The main weakness is the software, it’s obviously not top quality (at least on Mac OSX) since it’s rather clunky and has a number of bugs. I did try it on a Win 7 laptop but the screen was too poor to judge any corrections, so I am using it on a Mac with a colour calibrated screen.
The worst bug is that the software will scan up to the max of 60 pics, then you work through processing them and then it refuses to save them. So you restart the software and recall the whole batch. I now restart the software after each batch of 60 and the problem has gone away.
The software tools (mostly only using the white balance correction myself) can be brilliant or really poor, you just have to try on each photo and then undo if the effect is bad. The quality of some of the tools (ie the effect on the photo) is often very severe and coarse and renders many of the tools unusable (I’m used to using Lightroom for my DSLR hobby photos). So I only make very minimal tweaks – which is fine anyway because I have about 10,000 prints to scan and I don’t have the time to tweak each one – after all they are mostly snaps and not worth the effort.
It’s a good idea to occasionally lift the scanning cover and clean off the glass otherwise the auto-cropping feature (which otherwise works superbly) starts to leave black spaces at the top and bottom.
You have to learn a little bit from experience to avoid the bugs, but once done you can wizz through. I’ve done about 3,000 scans in a couple of days (after learning how to deal with the software issues).
The outcome is that the scanner IS good enough if you just want to store photos digitally so you have them for the future and save on storage space. I would not expect to print the scans in high quality in future or use it for critical or important photos or professionally. So for private casual use, it’s brilliant value.
If you have a significant volume of older prints then this is a must
It transformed a job that would have taken 89 days at 3 hours per day with the scanner on my printer, into job that took a long weekend.
Once photos are on digital format backing up, sending and sharing is easy.
This product is easy to set up and easy to use.
I think that for most folks that simply want to scan older photos, this is ideal, and the tools to enhance the photos are fine, however I am sure that a professional such as my Brother (Colin Prior) way wish higher standards, but for me the quality is more than adequate.
Once scanned I can start fully sorting out and thinning out, so rather than looking at the photos and deciding whether to retain and scan I just scanned as it really does only take 2 seconds per photo to scan.
Would thoroughly recommend this as a product.
Scott Prio
If you have a significant volume of older prints then this is a must
It transformed a job that would have taken 89 days at 3 hours per day with the scanner on my printer, into job that took a long weekend.
Once photos are on digital format backing up, sending and sharing is easy.
This product is easy to set up and easy to use.
I think that for most folks that simply want to scan older photos, this is ideal, and the tools to enhance the photos are fine, however I am sure that a professional such as my Brother (Colin Prior) way wish higher standards, but for me the quality is more than adequate.
Once scanned I can start fully sorting out and thinning out, so rather than looking at the photos and deciding whether to retain and scan I just scanned as it really does only take 2 seconds per photo to scan.
Would thoroughly recommend this as a product.
Scott Prio
Really excellent one touch improvement of old wishy-washy faded colour photos.
Be aware that once you have saved the scans to your destination folder you can no longer use the built-in touch-up software, although you may have other s/w on your computer that will do a similar job.
I scanned over 200 photos in a day. And only because i used the higher quality scan and it took me getting used to exactly how it all worked and playing around a bit with settings and naming, quality, adjustments etc…
It crops and rotates and sorts them as you scan them. No need to do anything. And if you go for a lesser quality scan (which is still great in my opinion) it does a scanned photo in about 2 seconds.
If they were to make it better and allow you to bulk rename photos, that would be the best. Or change timestamps so you can set it for the correct date or original taken photo.
I followed the easy instructions to set it up under the Windows 10 operating system with out problems — then started scanning, the results were very good, with the supplied software. The software is not overly complex and allows for some modification of the scanned images before saving. Scanning with the original software was only at 300dpi. The scanner itself fed photographs with no effort, just drop them into the top feeder and the automatic feeder does the rest!
I have now upgraded the software to the latest version (6.3.0.1 for Windows) and this has a bunch of enhancements, such as scanning at 300dpi or 600dpi, more file save options and improved image fixing tools. A word on the upgrade of the software you must uninstall the original software and reboot before installing the latest version.
I followed the easy instructions to set it up under the Windows 10 operating system with out problems — then started scanning, the results were very good, with the supplied software. The software is not overly complex and allows for some modification of the scanned images before saving. Scanning with the original software was only at 300dpi. The scanner itself fed photographs with no effort, just drop them into the top feeder and the automatic feeder does the rest!
I have now upgraded the software to the latest version (6.3.0.1 for Windows) and this has a bunch of enhancements, such as scanning at 300dpi or 600dpi, more file save options and improved image fixing tools. A word on the upgrade of the software you must uninstall the original software and reboot before installing the latest version.
Buyers might like to note that the scanning bar does tilt backwards and away from scanning plane thus allows the simple removal of the packaging materials.
If you don’t do this you first few scans might not work due to packaging jam. It’s not mentioned in the quick start guide. Worth knowing though.
This PC/Users/Public/Pictures/PlustekPhoto/Then a uniques date /no for each photo.