great scanner ! the software "Silver Fast" that comes with it is good but you probably want a photo editor like Coral photo paint as well to refine the images. I am scanning family photos some that are more then 100 years old and in fairly bad to very bad shape and am getting good results.

I have been looking at purchasing this scanner for years and have read numerous reviews on Amazon and else where. Some with high praise, and others with a bit of dissappointment. So now I shall try to express my observations.The packaging from Amazon was really sad. Normally, items are packaged well, but this was something to be desired. A piece of brown paper to fill the void of space between the Epson box and the large brown shipping box. The only protection this shipment got from damage was the manufacturers packaging. However, the scanner arrived without any shipping damage.It took less than 30 minutes to unpack, and hook everything up, and I was scanning slides. This is the main reason I purchased the V700. And to my surprise, what a remarkable job. As with any scan....the outcome is as good as the item you scan. With the Epson V700, you can change those results to be as close to perfection as you can get. I chose to use the Epson software and shelved the SilverFast SE, perhaps I may attempt to use SilverFast at a later date, but with the results of the Epson software I am completely satisfied. The software is very easy to understand and navigate. Can't say to much for the instruction and users manual. They could use a bit more tweeking. If you are familiar with scanning software and the terminology used, you can actually forget the manuals and venture forward on your own. Make a mistake and it is a very easy correct.The scanner does take up a fair amount of desktop real estate and was lighter than I had originally thought. I was impressed with all the templates you get for film, negatives, slides etc. They really come in handy. Depending upon the "quality" of the scan and options selected, the time it takes to scan your item may take from a few minutes to 20 minutes or more. This doesn't bother me because I just do something else while the Epson V700 is "perfecting" my slides, negatives and photos. Once scanned you can adjust your photo any way you want, with your favorite photo editing software. The Adobe software included is a fine tool, though I prefer my current editing software, only because I have used it for years. Nonetheless, I shall give the Adobe software a try in hopes of making some new discoveries in editing.I have read many posts here and some really go into detail, I suppose that is why I won't. Just don't want to be repetitive. I realize that there is (are) better scanners, but priced beyond my amatuer reach, and the V700 is about as far as I "need" to go. I had thought about the V750, but couldn't justify the difference in price. The end result, I have the "Perfection" I need....and that's what counts.I have a ton of slides to scan, and negatives as well, and for the ones I have done so far, the results were really surprising. You wouldn't know that some of these pics are 50 years old. The Epson V700 really cleaned these slides and negatives up. I am impressed. Of course there are some, that didn't clean up as well, but they were not that great to begin with, and I was hoping for a small miracle. However, again, the results were ok.As with any purchase, you have to define your needs and what you expect from the product. I suppose that is why it took a couple of years for me to make up my mind on this scanner. After you have defined your criteria...go shopping and really check the reviews. Reviews are very helpful. Epson has always made a fine product in my book and I am proud to have their equipment in my office. Their product placement just endorses the fact that I have good taste in purchasing quality.The Epson Perfection V700, it's in the name and it is surely in the results..."Perfection".

I have been using this for three months now and I am very pleased with its solid performance. It has one of the highest scan resolutions in a desktop at 6400 dpi and a dual lens design that selects the lens based on the required resolution. I am able to batch scan slides using the plastic carrier and it will scan a slide at 2400 dpi in a minute. Slides, pictures, film even newspapers - it handles them all with great results

I scanned over 2400 Ektochrome slides, over 3000 photos and over 1000 35mm film strips using this scanner and was pleased with the results. Being able to scan 12 35mm slides and four to six photos at a time is a tremendous time saver.If you expect to load the film in the scanner and push one button and have the scanner/software do the rest, you will be disappointed. If you are willing to do a minimal amount of work you can get excellent results in a reasonable amount of time.As of February 2012 all the delivered software will install on Windows 7. I installed all the software on a Windows 7 64 Bit Professional system and had no problems. I also has no problems with crashes or other software malfunctions while using the software.As mentioned in other reviews the provided documentation is extremely minimal and using the scanner/software requires extension experimentation and trial and order. Two sites providing detailed technical reviews of the scanner and software which I found useful are:[...]I used the Epson software for all my scanning. I tried the provided Silverfast SW and a trial version of VueScan but found that the Epson software best took advantage of the features of the V700 scanner. With the other software I could never scan 12 slides of multiple photos in one scan. The Silverfast web site indicates that they will provide a free upgrade to their latest version, but they haven't updated that version for the V700 so I did not bother with it.I scanned my slides and 35 mm film strips at 4800 DPI to JPEG files with the Epson software using the HOME mode with color restoration enabled. As far as I can determine the Home Mode is the only mode that allows you to scan 12 slides or multiple film strips at one time. The Professional mode seems to only allow you to scan one slide at a time. It took 10 to 15 minutes to scan 12 slides at 4800 DPI. The automatic marqueeing or outlining seemed to work pretty well in this mode. I used the Prescan option to check the images before final scanning.The slide numbering scheme in the slide holder is9 5 1 White dots10 6 211 7 312 8 4For scanning slides, negatives or film strips the document mat should be removed.I scanned my photographs with the Epson software using the Professional mode. I scanned the photos at 1200 DPI to JPEG files with color restoration enabled. The Professional Mode allows you to scan multiple photos in one scan. I was able to scan four to six photos in one scan using this mode depending on the size of the photos. After the photos are Pre-Scanned it is necessary to marquee or outline them manually before final scanning. However, the Epson software remembers the marquees or outlines from scan to scan so if you place the photos in the same position from scan to scan you can minimize the manual marqueeing usually having to adjust only one of them. It takes about three to four minutes to scan six photos at 1200 DPI.The Home mode allows you to scan multiple photos without manual outlining or marqueeing but does not allow photoshop like correction to be made during the scan.The photo numbering scheme for six photos is;TOP2 14 36 5For scanning photographs or documents the document mat should be installed.I did a Web search to determine what DPI to use for scanning. This search seemed to indicate that for archiving slides or negatives 4000 DPI was sufficient and for photos 600 DPI was sufficient. The V700 seems to only scan at discrete DPI's so using anything other than what the Epson software provides(Silverfast or VueScan) results in software interpolation being done.If you want to verify what DPI your scanned picture are you can use Adobe Photoshop to do this:Open the digital image in PhotoshopSelect Image->Image SizeResolution will be shown in pixels per inch.Problems I had using the scanner and software:1. As another reviewer mentioned the software sometime has problems with imageswith dark borders. I had this problem with 4 or 5 slides and it requiredplaying around with different modes and options to get around the problem2. The colors in several of my photos/slides of red/orange sunsets did notscan properly. They came out too blue. I could never get Epson orSilverfast to scan them properly. I had to use Photoshop to adjust thecolor and even then it did not correctly match the original.Summary:All in all the V700 scanner and software worked very well and I would recommend it.I did not find the Epson software to be terrible as some reviewers have indicated.I experienced no crashes or serious bugs when using the software. The Abort processing even worked correctly even though that is a feature that often doesn't work properly.

The scanner is pretty good, but Epson no longer deserves a high reputation as a company. They advertise, for example, that your package includes Adobe Photoshop Elements, but what you get is Elements version 3, which has been obsolete for 3 years! Elements 6 is the current version. And,if you check their website there is no provision to make general contact to register a complaint.