Since I got a digital camera scanners have been a bit of a lost cause for me as the main reason I had for using one was to scan in photos, and I have not used one in a good few years. However as there is going to be a new champ at the beginning of October I have found myself needing one again, so that I can scan in ultrasound scans of Jr. and send them to my family. As I am not going to use it for much else price was my main criteria for selection, and since I managed to acquire this one for free then it satisfied that. However you can pick one up for anything up to £40 on eBay.
The scanner has a resolution of 1260 dots per inch and to be honest for looking at stuff on a screen I have found 300 dots per inch to be more than adequate. This also keeps the image size down to a respectable size too. For printing out high resolution images the more dots per inch you have is better, but again a 300 dot per inch photo is perfectly reasonable.
Installing this scanner is easy if you have the CD you slap the CD in and follow the instructions. If like me you don't then you need to pay a visit to www.epson.co.uk to get the drivers, which are easy to find. You simply download the files and plug the thing into the mains and a spare USB port and away it goes. Windows XP does not recognise the scanner automatically so it is important that you install the drivers first.
I have never used the software bundled with a scanner since I got my first one many years ago, and I recommend that everyone spends some cash on getting a decent image editing package. I use JASC software's Paint Shop Pro, as it is cheap and just as good as Adobe's Photoshop.
To scan using paint shop pro it is simple, and disgustingly similar to most other packages in the file menu you have an import submenu. You first need to select the source, which is easy. Then you simply place the photo or document to be scanned face down in the scanner and hit the acquire button.
The scanner first asks what type of document you need to scan and it automatically does a pre-scan. Once the pre-scan is complete the software automatically picks up the bit it thinks you want to scan, which you can adjust by resizing the box. You then select the image quality you want and hit the scan button and wait a couple of minutes, and hey presto the image is ready for you to play with. You can also insert images directly into MS word and if you have character recognition software you can even copy documents.
As a scanner it does the job I require, and it does have other features which enable to scan direct to e-mail and publish straight to the web, but they are a bit pointless really. If you are looking for a cheap easy to set up scanner for scanning photos then this one does the job quite nicely.
More details
Ease of use
Very easy
Design
Satisfactory
Range of extra features / functions
Satisfactory
Instruction manual
Satisfactory
Manufacturer Support
Excellent
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