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I don't have any samples with me, but none of mine come out streaky. You may wanna clean the optics with the lint free cloth provided. Maybe even use a little alcohol. I scan all my photos at 600DPI. If they're grainy it could be that the the original photos are grainy. Get a loop or magnifying glass to examine the originals. Older photos seem be real contone photos where the newer generation of photos look like they were printed with high res inkjet instead of developed.
Sorry, there was a problem. Please try again later.My very FIRST scan after unboxing was ridiculously noisy in black areas. (So it's NOT dust). It was a clean, colour 6x4 print in good condition, about 15 years old. The black areas were a pure black cardigan worn by someone standing on a beach in front of a patch of dark green seaweed. Both the cardigan and the seaweed had unusable levels of chromatic noise. Tweaking the settings made very little difference. For comparison, I then scanned it on an old cheap flat bed scanner (Canon MX320) and the difference was stark. The flatbed had some noise, but perhaps only 20% of the levels of the Epson. Another problem is that the rollers leave visible impression tracks on old B&W photos. i.e. the FF-680W damages valuable old photos so my advice is to NOT put them through without putting them in the plastic sleeve first. Ironically, because this adds time to your workflow it basically negates the only reason to buy this unit - speed! Feedback for Epson: there's no point being FAST if your results are RUBBISH. PS: I worked in the R&D division of a camera manufacturer for 5 years, so I know something about image quality.
Sorry, there was a problem. Please try again later.Make sure you clean the scanner regularly. I have a can of air and the soft cloth that came with the scanner. Keeping it clean makes all the difference in the quality of the pictures.
Sorry, there was a problem. Please try again later.I unboxed my scanner yesterday and the first batch of photos I ran through have the same issue - black areas are horribly grainy. The auto-enhancement feature which typically brightens and enhances contrast actually shows more graininess and enhances the roller marks. Also, my flatbed scans at 2862x2088 were 462KB - the Epson at 600dpi and 2846x2032 came out as 3.36MB!! That's 8x the size, but definitely not 8x the quality. Unfortunately, I think I will have to take this back since it's great for bulk scanning, but doesn't meet my stringent quality requirements. I'm uploading my original scan from my 5+ year old HP Envy 4500 Flatbed (S9707-07) compared to the Epson FastFoto 680W regular and enhanced.
Sorry, there was a problem. Please try again later.Got the same results! Dark areas are EXTREMELY grainy and discolored...
Sorry, there was a problem. Please try again later.I wound up unchecking "Auto Enhance" (and also "Red Eye" for what it's worth) in the settings to reduce the grain/noise in especially the black areas.
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