Epson Perfection 1650 Photo Flatbed Scanner

A serious hobbyist couldn't ask for a better combination of precision and value. Despite the relatively low price, the scanner offers a 16-bit grayscale, 48-bit color, and a maximum resolution of 1,600 x 3,200 dpi--which is more than enough scanning power to glean every sharp detail from family photos.

One-touch buttons allow you to instantly copy, print, or e-mail photos. The built-in zoom feature provides a range of 50 to 200 percent, supplying plenty of options for enlarging or cropping your final prints. A cold cathode ray lamp is used as the light source, a powerful and economical choice that provides hours of efficient lighting. Maximum scan size is 8.5 x 11 inches, large enough for most office documents as well as your favorite vacation shots.

Included in the box is the scanner, film adapter, Adobe Photoshop Elements, and a USB cord, along with Epson Twain and a design software package. The manufacturer's warranty covers parts and labor for a full year.

Product Description
Powerful, high-quality image and document scanning! This is precisely what's delivered by the Epson Perfection 1650 Photo scanner. A fast, hassle-free and incredibly flexible scanning solution, this new scanner in the highly acclaimed Epson Perfection range has been designed specifically for the demanding user. Whether it's scanning directly to the Web, documents for Optical Character Recognition (OCR), negatives or slides for color proofs, or direct to your Epson printer, the Perfection 1650 Photo has the technology and power that's needed. The new one touch scan to web button, allows you to scan your photos directly to Epson's Online Photo Album - Epson PhotoStation. You can enhance, personalize, store and share photos in your very own personal album. And it is even more fun with the unique image editing services online, printing templates and even greeting cards. You can also scan slides and film negatives with the transparency unit - the film adapter built into the lid of the scanner.

Once you gain more confidence with the different elements in a scan (namely the relationship image size and resolution have with file size) you can use TWAIN for a more manual approach. This allows you to adjust your settings based on what your requirements for your final project are. For example, I could scan a postage stamp-sized picture at a high resolution and enlarge it into an 8" x 10" photo or larger and the quality would still look pretty good. Your final scan speed will depend on the resolution you've selected , but it's still fast at higher resolutions. The lower the resolution, the faster the scan time.

I love using TWAIN, especially since it only took a few trial runs to figure it out. It's calculations for file size, resolution, and image size are all right there, so there's no guess work needed from you. Epson also provides pretty good documentation for doing things manually for your first time (like a reference table for your final output on projects for web, negatives, photos, text, etc.). The color has been consistently sharp and the resolution very crisp, on both the flatbed and the transparency unit.

Notice, however, that this is not a portable scanner. It's bigger than some on the market and it is powered by an external power supply. But it is perhaps the best model on the market for projects that require excellent quality whether your project is personal or semi-profesional.


Good for slides and negs, excellent for prints!   December 10, 2001
skunktrain (So. California, USA)
54 out of 55 found this review helpful

I haven't printed anything out with the images I've scanned (yet) so I can't comment on that. All I know is that I needed a decent slide scanner, for an inexpensive price. This one satisfies that need.

I find that all scans are on the "warm" side - there's a slight yellowish cast to the pictures. This is easy to get out quickly, using the bundled Photoshop Elements (or in my case, I used Photoshop 6). By the way, do you realize that Photoshop Elements is just thrown in with this scanner? And that it is a well-reviewed graphics software program that retails on its own for a respectable price? And that there is also a coupon (limited time offer - until 6/02) that allows you to buy the FULL version of Photoshop at a fantastic discount? (Half off, or thereabouts.) WHAT a deal! Something to think about if you want to get into Photoshop!

Anyway, I found my slide scans to be of decent quality. Bear in mind, I am not exceedingly picky, because I have gone through several "consumer level" scanners with a slide attachment, and they all were pretty bad. So the fact that this one wasn't awful like all the others delighted me. But to be brutally honest, the slide scans are not all that sharp at higher resolutions (I scanned at 720 PPI). And sometimes the color needs extra tweaking. But I have been able to fix up and size down (and sharpen) my slide scans just fine. They look great for web images (even large wallpaper-sized web pictures), and I am guessing, are fine for printing on an ink-jet printer. (However, I found that my some of my darker and more underexposed slide scans didn't look that great, and required more Photoshop adjustments. But I need to expect limits to this scanner's abilities, I guess.) All-in-all, slide scans are perfectly adequate, and I am sure, quite good considering that this is NOT a "professional" level slide scanner. My own guess is that you will be hard-pressed to find another scanner (at this price range) that will make better slide scans.

Scanning negatives is pretty good (though, once again, a bit soft at higher resolutions). Some of my negative scans have been a bit "washed out", and needed some extra Photoshop adjusting. Scanning prints is excellent. Almost all image scans needed the quick Photoshop tweak to take out a bit of yellow, though. But that doesn't take much time, and I got used to it quickly. (EVERY image needs to be tweaked, after all, no matter how good the scanner is!)

I am using an iMac running OS 9.2.1, and the scanner's software is very stable. I don't use any of the bundled software, just Epson's TWAIN, in Photoshop. Works wonderfully. There is supposed to be an OS X update CD coming out in January 2002 (a coupon is with the scanner's paperwork, so you can order the CD).

If you are scanning more than one file at a time into Photoshop (scanning 4 negs at one time, or whatever) you need to give Photoshop plenty of RAM. (Always good advice anyway!)


Works Great for 35mm Slides   January 14, 2002
31 out of 31 found this review helpful

I purchased the 1650 Photo to scan my 30year old collection of color 35mm slides; and I could not be more pleased. I can't believe the quality...you would never guess they were slides. The scanner does 4 slides at a time. I hooked it up and right out of the box to my Dell Computer/Windows 98 with no problems. The software is easy to use - no need to study the manual. I scanned a few 4x6 photos at first just to try it out and then switched to the slides. It also has a holder for black and white 35mm film strips. If the quality is as good as the color you could eliminate a B&W dark room and just scan the negatives and print from your computer. As I said, I have not spent much time looking at the instructions or doing other scanning, so I may not be as familiar with all the features as some. The one thing I don't understand is why no `off/on' switch. I would gladly paid a few dollars more for one. The bottom-line...it you want a reasonably priced scanner for 35mm slide the 1650 is what you want.


A must for photo enthusiasts!   February 27, 2002
22 out of 22 found this review helpful

We have been buying Epson products for years and this scanner
has excellent quality. We are going through 30 years of fading
and faded photos to archive onto a CD. This scanner, together
with a simple photo editing program, has brought these pictures
back to life, and will be a great keepsake for our children.
For the unsatisfied people out there - "dust flecks & spots" are
common with any scanner and can easily be removed with photo
programs. AND some scanners sometimes are not compatible with
certain computer manufacturers.


Hard to beat for the price   March 26, 2002
Tool Connoisseur (APO, AE United States)
9 out of 9 found this review helpful

I don't know about XP but it works great with Win98. Installation was a snap. I bought it for archiving my old photo negatives and slides. I debated getting their next higher model for increased resolution based on a techie review, but I'm glad I didn't. The resolution is very adequate for the average home user, and then some - if you use the max resolution you should have a relatively new computer to handle it. Anything more would be overkill unless you have a commercial graphics shop and a high-end computer.
I tested mine on negatives - color was OK but processing time was long - probably my 366 computer. I tested a color slide and was very impressed - color wasn't perfect but easily fixed in my graphics program - resolution was excellent. I tried a full-page scan and noticed no edge shadows as someone else had reported. The scanner is also much quieter than my previous Canon scanner.
The software interface is nice. It has a full-auto mode which is very effective and useful for most applications, but it is also flexible enough to do most anything you would want to manually. I can't talk about service -no problems yet.
Bottom line is this is a great scanner for the price!