Epson Perfection V850 Pro Photo Scanner

Beginning in the late 1990s, I have been using Epson scanners and printers in my workflow for reconstruction of heirloom photographs and printing archival copies. My system includes an up-to-date Mac OS, a full subscription version of Adobe CC and a variety of third party plugins. To date I have not had any major conflict or issue with Epson products and the new V850 is no exception. My purchase was about one month ago so I can not make a definitive statement on how the mechanics will function over time but there are no conflicts with OS Yosemite. I have a V700 which is about 2 years old and still performing wonderfully. The anti-reflective other new optical features are why I purchased to V850—you can not have too many nuances of clarity w…

At $1200, the Epson v850 is definitely priced in the professional scanner category. You would expect every single feature of this scanner to perform better than a scanner that costs under $200. However, this scanner disappoints in a major way that Epson still has not been able to resolve. This makes the scanner a complete waste of money for the prosumer who is photo archiving old photos, slides and negatives.

The Major Issue:

-When scanning from the Epson v850, you have several options, including one of the most important known as the “Dust & Scratches” filter. TWhen enabled, this feature allows the scanner and its software to analyze the image to remove small flecks of dust, scratches or tears which may exist on the photo or negative.

-When you enabled this feature on the Epson scanner, the result is extremely disappointing. The result is an image with MAJOR COLOR COMPRESSION throughout the entire photo, which causes serious defect to the scanned image. It doesn’t matter which level of D&S you use, the compression is always present. The compression does not exist with any other feature, it only exists with the Dust & Scratches filter.

-This is an extremely horrible side effect that completely ruins the scanned image. What makes this such an important consideration is that the D&S filter is probably the most important filter for scanning old photos, slides and negatives to both prosumer and consumer alike. Without the ability to use the built in D&S filter, the scanner becomes effectively useless to all but professionals who have quality aftermarket software and are willing to put in the additional time to clean up their scans.

-NOTE: It is likely that the Epson D&S filter issue is software related, and impacts all of Epson scanners which use this same software package. We hope it is resolved, but have little hope since the software has been in use for years and seen multiple updates without resolving this significant issue.

Other Comments:

-For professionals who won’t need to use the D&S filter, there is one area where the Epson excels, and that is dark area image quality and detail. However, this is still balanced by the fact that in general, the Epson tends to deliver less detail over all from its scans then Cannon scanners. It’s a give and take situation, there is no clear winner. You can either have good detail throughout from a Cannon, or softer Epson scans with greater black area detail.

All of our tests were done at optical resolutions of 600dpi on photos and negatives. We compared hundreds of scans of the same image using a variety of scanner driver features. The Epson tends to scan a softer image that has more red bias and less yellow overall. The Cannon scanners provide full image detail (akin to looking at the image under a magnifying lens), and provide richer color.

If you are scanning photos only (not negatives or slides), then amazingly, the very inexpensive ($90) newer Cannon Lide400 scanner delivers low res scans (600dpi or less) equal to or better than the Epson v850 pro. It also scans more quickly through its USB 3.0 interface.

Unless you are using the v850 for its advanced features (including negative scanning), its hard to see why anybody should shell out the $1200 price tag for it. The D&S filter issue, all but makes the scanner useless for the average consumer, and for professionals, is unable to replace every other scanner on your workbench.

Took a bit of manual reading to figure out how to use the film attachments. But I’m very happy with the quality of scans I’m getting from this product. However, I’m giving it four starts because the Silverfast software that comes with it is a total bust. After an hour of playing with it, I still couldn’t get a decent scan out of the Silverfast software. Stick to the Epson scanner software, which is actually much easier to use and provides better results.

Also, this model has scanner profiling software and a color targets.The process of profiling the scanner was more complicated than it needed to be because you have to track down the proper download files to match the specific version of the targets shipped. The download link provided doesn’t go to the actual download page. You’ll have to search around the site until you find the right page. There wasn’t an exact match online for the target version I received, so I used the best available match. After spending a couple of hours profiling the scanner, the difference between the custom scanner profile I created and the generic V850 profile provided by default was infinitesimally small. It took a lot of staring at histograms of scans to even determine that there was a difference.

The moral is, unless you need two sets of film trays, you can probably save the $150 bucks and get the V800.

If You shoot or plan to scan 120 (Medium Format) films STAY AWAY from this scanner!!! This comes with a terrible Medium Format film holder which won’t take your 120 film properly. It is Too Narrow to fit under it’s beveled edges unlike their 35mm & 4×5 film holders which are fine. And besides if you shoot 6×7 film it gets even worse that you have to cut your negs by 2 piece each so it will fit, 3 6×7 negs are too long for their MF film holder. You will risk damaging your 120 film by using this scanner. And Epson’s customer service is not of any help at all (yes I have talked to them), their instructions is to just lay your 120 film on top the beveled edges as opposed to underneath it like the 35 mm film holder. The problem with this is the 120 film won’t stay straight, It’s a battle to keep the film straight & not crooked with this method, i am young with steady hands and it’s not my dexterity thats the problem. ALL I CAN SAY FOR 120 FILM SHOOTERS STAY AWAY!!! I feel like who ever designed this scanner never shot 120 film before…PS – Once you opened it and used it B&H won’t take it back. There are so many tapes in the original packaging that you have to take off it’s impossible to put them back like new. So Once you buy it and you’re not happy with it – TOUGH LUCK!

Purchased this product brand new. Out of the box wouldn’t power up. Epson’s support indicated sometimes this is an issue in shipping and had us toggle the lock switch on back of scanner. This didn’t fix the issue. Product was under warranty so Epson gave us 2 options: 1) Bring it to a service center (closest one to us was 90 miles away…we are from a large city so this was frustrating …. we should have done our homework first to determine if there was service in our hometown); or 2) Do an exchange via Epson where they “graciously” would send us a REFURBISHED scanner. They refused to replace with a new product. Very frustrating since we spent a lot of money to get a brand new unit and are now getting a refurbished one. If we had to do it all over I would pay more money to purchase locally instead of dealing with remote suppliers or else I would have spent less to get a refurbished one. Expensive lesson learned.

I bought this scanner primarily to scan 120 medium format negatives, mostly black and white, and that remains my sole use of the equipment. As such, it performs entirely satisfactorily. The film holder for 120 film is robust plastic with anti-Newton Ring glass. Loading the film is a little tricky as it is difficult, particularly in the case of curling film, to get the film both flat and centered in the the holder (I typically scan three 6cm x 6cm images at a time), but once achieved the holder does hold the film tight and flat. The holder is easily positioned on the scanner. Epson supply two scanning programs, Epson Scan and Silverfast SE Plus. For 8-bit scans, the Silverfast software is adequate, but to work with 16-bit images, you would need the full Studio AI version of Silverfast’s software to get proper control over your scanning. Thus for 16-bit scans, I use the supplied Epson Scan, a much more limited program than Studio AI, but entirely capable of producing a contrast and levels balanced 16-bit RGB image which is my preferred scanning method for both color and black and white negatives. Importing this image into Photoshop CC allows me to make the types of contrast and curve adjustments that I would be able to do with Silverfast Studio AI during the scan.

Typically, simply to control file size, I scan my negatives as 8-bit RGB (24-bit) via Silverfast SE Plus, but for images I prize above others I will use the Epson Scan for full 16-bit images for a marginal increase in scanning quality (most manifest in shadow area detail). Quality is excellent, with details rendered clearly and grain (always reduced for medium format compared to 35mm) present in a realistic manner. Tonal range is good, likely lacking somewhat compared to rendering the negative’s image with an enlarger and photosensitive paper, but more than adequate for most purposes. Scan times are about 2 minutes for a 6cm x 6cm image scanned at 3200 dpi which is certainly fast enough for me.

I have had the Epson’s in the past for flat bed, but my dedicated film scanner was dead and needed a new solution. Looked at dedicated film scanners again but to add the capability of 120 took the price point wait out. I read the reviews on teh V750 and decided to get the V850 (newer model) I was not disappointed at all. First thing I did was compare scans from V850 to my old dedicated film, I was pretty upset at the results. I have to rescan everything I did on the old film, it’s that much better. That was using just the epson default software to scan. Once I tested the difference between SilverFast and the Epson software, it clintched it that I would be rescanning everything I’ve ever done using the the SilverFast on the V850… I then did a quick couple scans on the 120. once again I was not let down, the V850 handles it. The film holders are not perfect, but as I tested on 6×6,6×7 and 6×4.5 I realized why they are the way they are… I recommend this to anyone who needs a scanner… but even more who need one for every use. Attached is photo of V850 compared to old Canon FS4000 film scanner.

I bought this scanner 6 months ago, not realizing it was a gray market unit (no US warranty – not intended for sale in the USA) and am unable to return it, so must pay for repair out of pocket. (It is showing vertical lines on the scans)
The seller was BecTec Global and I would NOT recommend buying from them due to this issue.

Operation of the software is slow and tedious. Presumption is that the user is a PC/Windows user and logic follows that line. Advanced users will balk at the slowness. Scans are indeed sharp and forgiving.

No flatbed scanner that handles transparencies can give you the sharpness of a drum scanner, but this machine comes as close as any flatbed can do.
On the plus side, the LED light sources need very little warm-up time, and the multiple film holders and software allow for efficient scanning of multiple items in a single pass.
On the negative side, the film holder for 120 film is poorly designed, and requires a lot of fiddling in many cases. Also, the Epson scan software could use some improvement. [The “zoom” function in the scan preview provides an inscrutably minimal size increase over the standard preview, for example, and the slider controls for image adjustment are way too small and fiddly.] Proper color management is very difficult to achieve.
The “Digital Ice” software does not work on either black & white or Kodachrome transparencies – I assume most folks know this already, but be prepared to do your own dust busting.