Plustek Photo Scanner Ephoto Z300, Scans 4x6 Inch Photos in 2 Seconds, Auto Crop and Deskew with CCD Sensor, Supports Mac and PC

I looked at several options to scan thousands of old snaps and this scanner gave the best balance of price and performance. You have to feed each picture individually but it's no hardship and scans in about 10 seconds (600dpi JPEG's). Software just works (Mac). It figures out the scan area and straightens automatically so need to be perfect in your alignment. Simple and efficient. Great product.

I bought this in place of an Epson V600 whcih I could never get working after 4 hours of dicking around. That was a flatbed photo scanner. This is a top-loader.This is a top-loader photo scanner which does docs as well. Set-up took <5 mins including downloading the drivers. So far it has been excellent. 300dip jpg wizzes through and 6oo dpi jgp a smidge longer. It does all normal formats though I haven't tested them. I did 60 photos in 25 mins including faff time, and have hundreds to go so am really glad. Does sizes A4 down to passport size. The feeder auto-centres when you feed in. Lots of functionality. The cost of getting the photos digitised was roughly £0.80p/photo so it definitely made sense to me to buy.Only a couple of whines - could be some documentation and the target directories could be easier to change. You need to wait for the scan process to finish before the next one can be done even though the photo has already come out of the bottom.Good thing is that the photos are grouped as you put them in but not saved so you can select them all and put them into a specific folder, but once saved to the folder you can't edit them again unless you re-scan or use another package. So far I am really impressed with how simple it was to set up and use - definitely intuitive. For smaller photos you can put them in two at a time to create a single image.The footprint is roughly A5 deep and high, and A4 wide so nowhere the footprint needed for a flatbed. Plus the ergonomics of an intuitive top-loader make it quick and easy to use - no dicking around with lids and having to place photos in a specific area. Doesn't do negatives though, but not an issue for me.So far a great buy - definitely reccommended!

There are not many options for scanners to quickly reduce the number of stored photographs and photograph albums. Flatbed scanners are too slow. Having reviewed the options I settled on the Plustek ephoto Z300 and I am pleased that I did. It was a pleasant surprise to receive a helpful email from the vendor before I received the printer ( using Amazon Prime too!). Setup was easy. I did not have a cd drive on my laptop to install the supplied software. I could only find drivers on line so I use an old PC and copied the CD onto a USB stick. On loading this onto my laptop I was informed of a newer software version on line. This quickly downloaded and installed. I then installed and calibrated the printer and was scanning within 10 minutes. The unit has a nice small footprint and is quiet in operation. The bundled software is easy to use. I chose a location in my cloud, changed the scan dpi to 600 and quickly scanned the contents of one photo album. The software does permit rotation and editing. Bearing in mind that we could not do this when the photos were taken and printed and the fact that the cameras in my youth that I could afford were pretty basic I am very happy with simply scanning and not adjusting - I have about 50 albums to scan! The results are fine , memories are safely preserved and space in my house is recovered. The scans are quick, 300 dpi is very quick, 600 dpi takes a little longer. Feeding the photos is very easy. I have a flatbed scanner but chose this for speed and ease of use for scanning many photos and it is a good choice. I have also scanned documents with it. They are also quick and with good results. In short an excellent scanner for the price to do exactly the job that I wanted it to complete

Decided after many years that I needed to take control of my photo collection (about 5000 pictures pre-digital camera era) and hoped that this would be the device to allow me to do that...Initial thoughts on unpacking were:- good design- solid build- simple physical setupInstalling the software (for a Mac) was a simple case of visiting the website and downloading the latest version, double clicking and then installing - what could go wrong?Running the calibration was also straight forwards - select from the menu and follow the prompts.The application, as has been pointed out in other reviews, is not the best and provides almost no standard features we have come to expect from a modern application:- opens in one of two modes, either a fixed size window or full screen. There is no option to resize...- opens on the primary screen only. I have a multi monitor setup for my Mac and had to set one of the large monitors as "main display" and then reopen the software to get in on the screen.Once installed and visible on the right screen the actual software use is straight forwards, configure the filename default, set the folder location and the resolution and you are good to go.The scanning resolution can be set to either 300dpi or 600dpi only - no additional options. This is acceptable for home use, but not for any "serious" requirements.The software has a set of simple controls for image quality and picture restoration. Again, they are suitable for home use (archiving, sharing, TV display) but I would recommend using an alternative product to correct the image if quality is paramount.Scanning is very simple, and in the case of 300dpi, almost ridiculously fast.Drop the photograph into the scanner feed location and 2-3 seconds later it appears on the screen ready for editing. All image are scanned to a staging area to allow them to be corrected and then saved - but you are limited to 60 images before you MUST save them which prevents you from scanning large number in a continuous run. I can only assume this is due to software limitation and the lack of correct memory management.It is also worth pointing out that the scanner can ONLY be used by the provided software - it does not appear as a selectable device other applications.HOWEVER...I have returned my scanner due to hardware(?) issues causing a "lockup" / "freeze" at random intervals through the scanning process.As a result I cannot comment in depth on the additional features of the software or the results it may be possible to achieve with some practice and mastery of all of the features - but my initial impressions (once you get past the limitations) were quite good.I really wanted to like this device:- it is simple to use- it is relatively inexpensive for what you get- it is fast (even without an automatic document feeder - see the Epson devices but be prepared to pay a premium)- it produces reasonable images which are more than suitable for home use...but the annoying hardware glitch has spoiled the overall experience for me.Overall the quality and end-to-end workflow is, for a relatively inexpensive bulk scanner, quite good - and I would recommend this product for anybody with a large photograph collection looking for a cheap alternative to a professional scanning service.Hopefully you will get one that works correctly - by the number of reviews on here there are a lot of people who have - but the bottom line from me is that the product is good at what it does (when it works) but is let down somewhat by the software that supports it.