Epson Perfection V39 II Color Photo and Document Flatbed Scanner

I decided it was time to go through the old photo albums and digitize them. I had a nice Canon wireless scanner that was fine, quick, and made things easy, insert the photo and the rollers pulled it though and scanned. But after about 30 or 45 minutes it started having issues keeping things pulling STRAIGHT. So suddenly one side would grab better and it would skew some during the scan, pulling it crooked then half way though. Nothing worked to fix it, so I figured that one was now just a receipt scanner, and I needed a real one again for photos.

This one was one of the top results in my google searches, so I figured I’d give it a try. I know the only difference between this and the one just below it was the software it came with. and I was not sure what I’d use it for long term, so I opted for the slightly more expensive version with a more complete software package.

Scanning old docs and photos has been pretty much flawless. About the only issue I have is sometimes getting the auto crop right on scans where I have 4 to 6 photos on the glass. Usually it works, but sometimes it just doesn’t quite get it right, and two of them end up together. It’s rare enough that it doesn’t bother me. Generally it just offers up to save each one individually so I do not have to scan everything one at a time. And it auto-numbers them, so in the albums for family, for example, I just point it to the folder, tell it to name them FAMILY and all the photos are named family _#### in order. And the next batch just continues with the next available number. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

Results seem good as well. I compared it to the Canon wireless before it started pulling things crooked, and these look better, colors are more correct, and a better contrast bewteen them. Definitely more like the photo than the other scanner.

Came with the USB cable, and that’s the ONLY reason I’m taking a star off. This should’ve been USB C. USB C has been out for a while now, there was no need to use a Micro USB plug that’s over 16 years old now. Most people like me have been replacing items with the older style plugs so they could declutter and get rid of the old cables. Had this come with USB-C, it would’ve been an easy 5 star product.

Great scanner for the price. I wish it had an SD card slot for scanning directly to a card. But it does have a USB port to scan via that to the computer. The software drivers are available on the internet and install easily and work well.

NOTE: You can scan one picture at a time or multiples, just be sure to leave some space between them on the glass as that is how the scanner differentiates. After the scan, they will have a generic name but you can rename them via right click or a slow double click as usual. I have already scanned over 500 pictures for my first project.

Although it purports to also allow some minimal red eye and color correction, I have not used those features.

I purchased this after looking at the positive and negative reviews. When I unpacked it the first thing, I notice there was no power supply. It was light but looked like it was well put together. I followed the instructions and downloaded the software for my operating system (Windows 11) before I plugged it in. Software loaded correctly and then was instructed to plug the USB cable in. When I did a little light flashed a few times and then went out. After uninstalling and reinstalling several times, doing the software update in the program, changing the usb cable, changing the usb ports, disconnecting my other scanner I never got past the few flashes and a notification that my scanner was not connected.

I boxed it back up and sent it back. I have installed, and assembled computers for over 20 years. It does not work. I would not even try another one. Stay away.

I’ve had numerous photo scanners of the years, but I don’t think the general quality/speed has changed much over the last 10+ years.  I had an Epson V300 that I used to scan in over 15,000 photos. It was connected to a Windows 7 computer, later upgraded to Windows 8.  I attempted to move it to Windows 10 (64 bit) and had issues.  I decided it was time to upgrade, and this new Epson V39 II was less than a third what I recall paying for the Epson  V300.  The only feature it does not have is negative/slide scanning. Fortunately that’s not something that I know I need immediately.  I do need to scan documents to PDF and Word format.  My V300 could scan to PDF but its OCR capabilities were quite limited. The V39 II also allows me to  export to attachments and a variety of cloud services.  I might find these useful.  But my primary use will be to scan in a couple of thousand photos I’ve acquired/found over the last several years.  

I first downloaded the latest Epson Scanner Software (Drivers and all Software).  Then connected the scanner, it was quickly recognised by the Epson Software, and the proper driver was installed.  I noticed that the scanner is STILL a USB 2.0 device, meaning its still slow compared to  USB 3 devices.    If I’m scanning at 300 dpi, this probably does not matter.  The scanner supports scanning at 4800 dpi.  In general this is overkill for OCR, PDF or image scanning.  But for technical drawings (especially electrical, I’ve found it very helpful).  I’ve decided to scan all my photos (over 30k) in at 1200 dpi.  At 300 dpi you lose too much detail, 600 is fine for internet use, but for printing/digital photos 1200 dpi provides nice sharp resolution, about the same resolution as digital camera photos (jpg capture). 

So at 300 dpi the V39 II scanner can scan a 4×6 photo in about 6 seconds.  600 dpi takes about 35 seconds and 1200 dpi takes just over 75 seconds.  I suspect USB 3 might improve the data transfer rate (it could be that at the higher resolution you just can’t move any faster; I don’t know, but I wish that I could scan in photos in under 60s each.  I should mention that you can load the scanner palate up with multiple photos at the same time and each will be brought in as a separate images.  My V300 did this but not nearly as well as the V39 II does.  The auto crop feature works extremely well, and the ability to rotate, or zoom into images is much better than their prior software.  The quick fix works well, as does the restore colors.  The red-eye fix really depended on how bad the image was.  But having these functions handy has certainly simplified much of my workflow. That being said, there are still circumstances where using more sophisticated software will make further improvements (cleaning up dust/scratches, spots etc) functions the quick fix software does not really address. One feature I was anxious to try was their quick stitch software which is supposed to combine images that are either placed on  the pallet together or combined by selecting in the app.  Overlapping on the scanner still showed edges, I tried over and over, unsuccessfully.  And at 1200 dpi getting the software to stich them together was painfully slow, I tried over and over to improve the results, and I can’t say I expected to use this function in the future.  

I scanned in some documents to PDF, it worked excellent.  And the OCR to Word also worked very well. Everything I tried was “typed” not handwritten so I can’t say how well handwriting recognition works.  But for my images/photos the quality is excellent, just a bit on the slow side. But clean-up of most photos can be done within the smart-scan application.  

I personally would appreciate some additional options, more like I have on my iPhone, Exposure, Brilliance, Highlights, Shadows, Contrast, Brightness, Saturation, Vibrance, Warmth, Tint and Sharpness.  Yes, I can drop images to Elements or another application, but having the same functionality I have on my phone, which seems to make sense to me, would be so much better.  

So I deducted a star for speed, and one for stitching/editing functionality.  
I knew this could not handle film directly (negative/slides).  
Otherwise is a nice compact scanner, with a removable cover to scan large items.  It’s substantially smaller than my V300, and powered over USB (no power brick) and you can use it on its stand upright (when dealing with single pages/photos).

After about 2 or 3 scans it quits working. I reboot. Sometimes that helps. After 2 or 3 more scans then it needs rebooting again. Sometimes that no longer works. Then I uninstall & reinstall the software. Then it works for about 2 or 3 more scans & the same thing happens all over again. I’m using a Mac computer but it claims to be compatible. I don’t think it is. I had an Epson that I used with a Windows computer. It worked great. It is obsolete for my Mac so I had to buy a new scanner. Since I was happy with my old scanner, I went with another Epson. I’ve only had it a week, but I’ve reloaded the software about a dozen times & rebooted more times than that. I’ve talked to people at Epson at least 3 times & had communication problems each time. If it is working when I get off the phone with them, they think it is fixed. It lasts about 2 or 3 scans & then it all starts over again. Since I’m still in the return window, I’m about ready to send it back.

Some of the scans are great, some are washed out. You never know how the color is going to be either.

It won’t let you scan directly into Photos. The go into Pictures. Then you have to transfer them to Photos & delete them from Pictures. Lots of extra steps that seem unnecessary.

This has been beyond frustrating!!!

Manual says download software before plugging it into the computer. I couldn’t get the software from epson until I created an account, and I registered my product at the same time. On epson website when you go to support for the perfection v39II, and try to download it, with windows 11 anyways, I was getting a message about not recognizing my operating system, choose it from the drop down menu (no visible drop down menu). After registering, the drop down appeared, and I downloaded windows 11 installer.

Install was easy. It gives you smart scan in 2 flavors. One program is a nice user interface that’s simple 1 click auto scan, few clicks for editing, and saving. The other program let’s you customize your scan settings in an advanced manner which I probably won’t use.

This scanner in “auto” generated a perfectly cropped and rotated image of a 5×7 photo I had. The quality blew me away compared to my old Canon all in one printer/scanner I used to use. The editing enhancements for color made it worse in this case, so i left those off.

I think most bad reviews are from damage in shipping, or software incompatibilities, but luckily I had neither.

Several previous reviews suggested that this scanner had problems with the most recent versions of MacOS. I thought it was worth a shot anyway, given the price point, so I ordered one. I am using MacBook Pro computers with Apple M1 chips and the latest (as of now) version of MacOS and had absolutely no problems. The trick is to download the latest drivers from Epson and install them BEFORE you plug the scanner into the USB port on the computer. Epson allows you to select the exact OS version you have on your computer (MacOS or Windows) when downloading.
Anyway, once all of the drivers were installed and the device plugged in, all was well. I wouldn’t say the Epson’s ScanSmart application was the greatest app ever written, but it did the job; allowing the user to scan a picture or document and save it to your computer. I only tried saving images as jpegs, but I have no reason to believe that the pdf option doesn’t work, as well.
For the application I intend to use the scanner for (digitally archiving old photos), it should work just fine.

I’ve had numerous photo scanners of the years, but I don’t think the general quality/speed has changed much over the last 10+ years.  I had an Epson V300 that I used to scan in over 15,000 photos. It was connected to a Windows 7 computer, later upgraded to Windows 8.  I attempted to move it to Windows 10 (64 bit) and had issues.  I decided it was time to upgrade, and this new Epson V39 II was less than a third what I recall paying for the Epson  V300.  The only feature it does not have is negative/slide scanning. Fortunately that’s not something that I know I need immediately.  I do need to scan documents to PDF and Word format.  My V300 could scan to PDF but its OCR capabilities were quite limited. The V39 II also allows me to  export to attachments and a variety of cloud services.  I might find these useful.  But my primary use will be to scan in a couple of thousand photos I’ve acquired/found over the last several years.  
I first downloaded the latest Epson Scanner Software (Drivers and all Software).  Then connected the scanner, it was quickly recognised by the Epson Software, and the proper driver was installed.  I noticed that the scanner is STILL a USB 2.0 device, meaning its still slow compared to  USB 3 devices.    If I’m scanning at 300 dpi, this probably does not matter.  The scanner supports scanning at 4800 dpi.  In general this is overkill for OCR, PDF or images scanning.  But for technical drawings (especially electrical, I’ve found it very helpful).  I’ve decided to scan all my photos (over 30k) in at 1200 dpi.  300 dpi loses too much detail, 600 is fine for internet use, but for printing/digital photos 1200 dpi provides nice sharp resolution, about the same resolution as digital camera photos (jpg capture). So at 300 dpi the V39 II scanner can  scan a 4×6 photo in about 6 seconds.  600 dpi takes about 35 seconds and 1200 dpi takes just over 75 seconds.  I suspect USB 3 might improve the data transfer rate (it could be that at the higher resolution you just can’t move any faster; I don’t know, but I wish that I could scan in photos in under 60s each.  I should mention that you can load the scanner palate up with multiple photos at the same time and each will be brought in as a separate images.  My V300 did this but not nearly as well as the V39 II does.  The auto crop feature works extremely well, and the ability to rotate, or zoom into images is much better than their prior software.  The quick fix works well, as does the restore colors.  The red-eye fix really depended on how bad the image was.  But having these functions handy has certainly simplified much of my workflow. That being said, there are still circumstances where using more sophisticated software will make further improvements (cleaning up dust/scratches, spots etc) functions the quick fix software does not really address. One feature I was anxious to try was their quick stitch software which is supposed to combine images that are either placed on  the pallet together or combined by selecting in the app.  Overlapping on the scanner still showed edges, I tried over and over, unsuccessfully.  And at 1200 dpi getting the software to stich them together was painfully slow, I tried over and over to improve the results, and I can’t say I expected to use this function in the future.  

I scanned in some documents to PDF, it worked excellent.  And the OCR to Word also worked very well. Everything I tried was “typed” not handwritten so I can’t say how well handwriting recognition works.  But for my images/photos the quality is excellent, just a bit on the slow side. But clean-up of most photos can be done within the smart-scan application.  
I personally would appreciate some additional options, more like I have on my iPhone, Exposure, Brilliance, Highlights, Shadows, Contrast, Brightness, Saturation, Vibrance, Warmth, Tint and Sharpness.  Yes, I can drop images to Elements or another application, but having the same functionality I have on my phone, which seems to make sense to me, would be so much better.  

So I’ve deducted a star for speed, and one for stitching/editing functionality.  
I knew this could not handle film directly (negative/slides).  Otherwise is a nice compact scanner, with a removable cover to scan large items.  It’s substantially smaller than my V300, and powered over USB (no power brick) and you can use it on its stand upright (when dealing with single pages/photos).

It takes so long for the scanner to scan two photos. Almost unusable. The price is good but still isn’t worth it.

initially I was ready to return mine as it would not power up to install the software. I thought I’d try downloading the software again and when I did I noticed that what I had previously downloaded was for V 19 – so after uninstalling the incorrect software I was able to load and use the V 39!!. I consider myself to be one of those guys that usually gets tech stuff easy, but this time I rushed ahead and had to start all over. Great scanner – cant beat it for the price, I’ve been scanning a ton of old photos to save for the kids and grandkids, and its worked flawlessly.