Introduction

When I was a child in the sixties, our family album was somewhat limited. Back then photography was very expensive and colour photography was still being developed for the masses.

My father had an old Kodak 126 instamatic camera then, which was the first camera he had owned that was capable of taking colour photographs. At the time he preferred to buy film for slide photography, as these slides tended to preserve colour images far better than prints from the period.

The camera tended to only come out on birthdays, at Christmas and other special occasions given the cost of the film, the developing and other sundries such as flash bulbs, but of course over time the technology in photography has moved on and by the early 1970s my father had acquired a 35mm camera, but still insisted on only using it sparingly.

As I grew up I wanted a camera of my own, and by the time I was 15, I was allowed to use my dad's old Kodak 126 camera, and over time I used this before becoming the proud owner of my very own 110 "pocket" instamatic camera back in 1981. We switched from slide photography in the late seventies to prints, but over time I have come to see why slide photography was favoured for colour pictures, given the way some of the prints from the late seventies I own have faded.

Over the years I have always kept the negatives of these photographs, and my mother has also carefully kept the old slide photographs from the sixties and seventies, but the cost of getting reprints and somehow acquiring prints from the positive slide film seemed prohibitive, so they have effectively been gathering dust for years.

Some time ago I was in Aldi and they were advertising a device to digitalise slide photographs and negatives and I was curious about the results these devices delivered. I did some research and discovered the overall opinion was somewhat mixed, however the general consensus amongst people online was to try to get a decent scanner which could deal with photographs, slides and negatives.

I appreciate much of the photography terms I use here will go over the head of younger members whose only experience of family photos is the digital camera, but in my lifetime I have seen lots of different formats in photography come and go, so it really was time to update all these formats into the modern jpg file!

The Scanner

My budget was limited and I was also aware of the fact that I wasn't going to be dealing with amazing photographs here - they were nearly all family snapshots that whilst priceless to the family, contained little of artistic merit. It was a standing joke in the family, for instance, that my mother would take a picture of my father with some large building protruding from his head, and my dad wasn't the best for capturing the moment in focus either. As for my abilities with the camera, well the less said, the better!

As a result I decided to go for the Epson Perfection V300 Photo scanner, which set me back £72.56 on Amazon.

I have been using 3-in-1 scanners for years now, so it seemed strange to have a dedicated flatbed scanner again and whilst this model is sleek and stylish in black, it is also quite large. Fortunately it is lightweight and easy to move about if need be.

The scanner came with software CD, mains adaptor, photo template and USB lead. Connecting it was trickier than usual as my CD/DVD drive packed up not long after I placed my order for the scanner, refusing to read CDs. I got around this by visiting the Epson website and downloading the drivers from there, but I still was a little confused because I couldn't immediately access the instruction manual - which was, as most of these things are these days, on the CD.

I managed to locate the instructions online, which was just as well as I was completely baffled as to how I could scan negatives and slides using the photo template which came with the scanner on first impressions.

The document mat, which is basically a black plastic frame with a thick piece of white card attached is removable and in the absence of the instruction manual I couldn't work out why, but then I realised that the transparency unit window is covered by this mat so if you are working with negatives or slides, the mat will need to be removed. Fortunately this is fairly straightforward to do.

The photo template which holds 4 slides or a row of approximately 6 negatives, sits on the flat bed of the scanner - and you place this according to which type of transparency you are going to scan. There is a knack to this and while the template does offer some instructions as to how to do it, if you are lacking some grey matter like myself, you will need the instruction manual to show you the way. It's one of those things that had me wondering how the heck it worked until I saw it for myself and I was kicking myself for not working it out sooner!

Using the Scanner

I powered the machine on and then clicked on the "Epson Scanner" icon that was now on my computer. This opened up the software required to use the machine and it was then that I was able to put the machine to the test - would it be able to cope with old slides - some of which were over 40 years old?

I carefully put the slides in the spaces available for them on the photo template. I then had to tell the software what kind of photograph I was scanning - for example a positive transparency for a slide, and then I hit "Preview" on the software. This brought up a strip of the slides on the screen which was very small. You frame the picture you wish to scan using a crop feature and then hit "Scan". If you want to see the picture closer, you can select "Zoom" and a new preview will be done enabling you to see the picture better.

This is a great feature as you can touch up the picture before you hit "Scan", using a colour restoration feature, improving the backlight, using the dust removal feature or the "Unsharp Mask" which sharpens features as required.

You can also choose what size you want the scan to be and select the resolution. The higher the resolution the longer the scanning time, but the results will be better.

It took about 90 seconds to scan the image using a resolution of 1000 dpi. The process is, however, quite noisy. When I got the first results I was amazed - the quality of the scan was sharp and

clear, and the colour was fresh. The first slide I scanned dated from 1973 and the only thing that gave the period away were the fashions.

Using trial and error I realised that the vast majority of these slides needed no colour restoration at all - proving how well these transparencies have maintained colour over the years - and I also realised I could crop the preview scan before committing to a definitive version which meant I was able to cut out some of the more incriminating evidence of my parents' poor photography skills.

I then decided to try to scan 35mm negatives and once again I was pleased with the results - all you do is tell the software you are dealing with colour negative film and you also have to turn the photo template around so the transparency unit can scan the negatives.

The negative holder is designed for 35mm negatives and they sit in quite tightly in the negative holder, however I have tried to use it with 110 and 126 instamatic negatives from the late 1970s and early 1980s and can confirm that it works a treat with them too.

For instance 30 years ago I went on a school trip to Dinard in northern France and I have long since mislaid the prints from the photos I took then on my dad's old Kodak 126 camera. However I still have the negatives and in a matter of minutes the faces of old school friends were staring back at me on my computer screen.

The final test for me was scanning prints - particularly some from a family holiday taken in 1980 that took in the Netherlands, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. These prints had faded badly over time and I was concerned they were beyond repair as I couldn't readily locate the negatives.

I decided to try out the colour restoration feature in earnest on some prints of myself as a blushing sixteen year old and was delighted to see the pictures come up on the screen with much of the colour restored to its former glory.

Final Thoughts

In this day of 3-in-1 printers/scanners, it seems odd to be going out and buying a flatbed scanner but if you have family photographs you want to digitalise on a budget, you could do a lot worse than this Epson V300 Photo.

Last year I got two prints from 110 film negatives done at Jessops. They had to be sent away and took 2 weeks to come back. I paid in the region of a fiver for two prints. I feel robbed now when I see how easily these negatives can be scanned using this machine, and then printed off either at home or for a few pence from an SD card at the chemist or supermarket.

Obviously the clarity of print will never be quite as sharp as that you would get from a negative, but it comes close enough for family snapshots. The only real downside is the noise I suppose - it's far noisier than any scanner I have owned before, but given the results it produces I can live with it. Also, if you have old Disc or APS negatives, this will be of no use to you.

The scanner is also capable of quickly and clearly scanning any document, and you can easily create PDF files on it. The scanner lid is designed to cope with thick books too as it lifts up, so if you want to scan something from a hefty tome, this scanner should be able to cope.

For ease of use and purchase price, I have to say I am really impressed with this scanner, and would recommend it to those of you who want to be able to store old family photographs digitally - assuming, of course, your family isn't that of David Bailey. For Mr Bailey's family, or any other talented photographer's family, I would suggest you might do better to purchase one of the scanners up Epson's range, such as the V500 Photo or V700 Photo - but of course the price is also suitably higher.

This review was previously published by me on dooyoo under the same user name