The combination of powerful features, ease-of-use, high quality and affordability with the Epson Perfection 1260 has taken home scanning to new levels. Technologies that are often found only in advanced scanners are standard in this new and incredibly versatile scanner. It is now a case of home scanning with a very real difference - the Epson difference.An optical carriage movement of 2400 dpi with Micro Step Drive, Dynamic Range Control and Simultaneous RGB scanning produces smooth, clear images with high color consistency and depth. With the optional Transparency Unit, scanning 35-mm film negatives and slides is an absolute breeze. With a total of 10 applets, the Epson Smart Panel makes it an absolute snap to make the perfect scan for photos, OCR, e-mail, Web and even Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs). With direct scanning to P.I.M. (Print Image Matching) format, photograph scans feature colors more vivid than scans restricted to the traditional sRGB color space. With a single press of one of the scanner's four buttons, the scanner enters auto mode and delivers optimum scans, every time.The Perfection 1260 Photo model comes standard with a versatile 35-mm slide adapter unit for scanning negatives and slides.
1 Decent scanner, mediocre software
I purchased a 1260 about 9 months ago after my first-generation scanner (from UMAX) died. The scanner and software were quite easy to set up (on a PC running Windows XP), I've had no hardware problems, and I've found the picture quality to be very acceptable. It's a bit slow to warm up and scan, but both were as expected in this price range.
The bundled EPSON SmartPanel software is a disappointment; it gets the job done but is far from user-friendly (and my low-tech wife still hasn't figured out how to use it).
2 A very good home-use scanner
This is my first scanner but it has been a pleasure. It has never caused any trouble and has always done what I asked. Sometimes I struggle to get the 35mm adapter to work (the optional attachment) but other than that, this scanner has proved to be a very good purchase.
3 What Junk-Software Sucks
What a waste of money. Purely a disaster. Lucky to get 2 scans without errors. Total frustration. messages:Scanner busy, scanner warming up; scanner not ready; scanner not available.
This makes the old Microtek look like a dream machine.
I have another Epson at home and the Smart Panel software is not so smart- there too- errors, lockups. I hope nobody else buys this garbage. Poor support terrible software.
4 Epson Perfection 1260
The quality of the picture is great. Unfortunately, the people that wrote the software for this scanner had created a great deal of glitches; the interaction (if you get any) between the software and the scanner is user unfriendly.
5 Beware...
When my HP Scanjet 3200C refused to work with Windows XP on my new computer, I decided to try the Epson Perfection 1260. The installing the scanner drivers were extremely easy. I didn't bother with the additional software since I have Photoshop 7. After quickly getting the scanner up and running, I noticed problems.
When pictures or color documents were scanned, they were usually a bit blurry. Sometimes they had a red line going through them, however, I didn't think much of it. I pretty much used the scanner for line art. That however should have been a warning sign as the quality of photos, magazine articles and covers I scanned seemed to get progressively worse. To make them look clear, I often had to clean up the lines in Photoshop.
Then came the final straw, when trying to scan a color drawing, the scan came out way too dim. Instead of a clear picture (or even a slightly blurred one) all I got was grayish fuzz. When I tried to scan a DVD cover as a test, all I got a lot of red and no color. All of this, and I've only had it for a few months, moderately using it from time to time. All in all, I'd say my money was wasted.
So far I'd say if you're looking for something easy to install and use, that also scans clean line art, then go for it. For anything and everything else, the low price isn't worth it.
6 The best scanner I every had.
This is the best scanner that I every had & is one of the best and easy to use, I also like the photo is easy and I had only one problem with it and got great technical support.
7 Great price, good service, but not worth the bother!
I purchased this scanner from Dell, after doing my homework and looking at its good ratings, and I especially wanted the transparency adapter. It was supposed to be the model with the transparency adapter, but came without it. Dell would not even acknowledge my emails. The scanner did not work properly when scanning pictures. All scans were yellow and red! Epson was contacted and repaired the unit very quickly, but refused to replace it. It still makes weird sounds when scanning, but at least the colors are OK now. However, the software that came with the scanner is really weird and instructions are poor. Also, the OCR software is totally useless. It doesn't recognize text in columns, so each little section has to be scanned separately.
After using the Epson for a few weeks I gave up on it and have now purchased another brand.
8 This thing is a piece of junk and...
Really slow, low quality,[weak] software and no power switch. And good luck getting technical support! My emails got bounced and I could not get through on the phone. ... So here's the summary: bad product, bad service, ...
9 Don't buy this!
This will be the first and last Epson product I will ever buy. I've had nothing but problems with this scanner since I bought it.
Their copying program has to use a Generic printer driver unless it's an Epson printer. I had to write a program that would switch my print driver to a generic one every time I copy something, otherwise it wouldn't copy, or I would have to manually change the default print driver every time I scanned something. That, or deal with a featureless printer.
And half the time when I try to just preview a scan before scanning it to a file, it says "Pre-scanning in progress" for about 10 seconds, then it says "Could not read from scanner".
They don't even offer a way to contact their support other than a long distance telephone number! Well... That and a regular mailing address. They don't offer any type of web or e-mail support contacts! This is pathetic! Epson has the worst tech support I've ever seen!
I'm a computer technician, and I've tried just about everything I could possibly think of to fix this, but nothing has worked. And I have gotten no help whatsoever from Epson's tech support. Now I wish I had just returned it when these problems started. My six year old Canon Parallel scanner was 100 times better than this! I bought this thinking Epson was a good brand, but I've learned my lesson on that.
10 Not perfect, but pretty darn good
I almost did not buy the 1260 Photo Scanner based upon a couple of other reviews. After using it for a few days, I sure am happy I did.
1. Since I run Windows XP with the Service Pack, I was very concerned after reading the problems a couple of other buyers experienced. I can now say this is not an issue with the Epson. When you open the box, there are instructions on how to download a 'patch' from Microsoft to ensure that the scanner runs perfectly.
2. I was also concerned with another reviewers comments about having to set up a 'phantom' printer. I use a HP Laserjet printer and I printed to that device without any problems.
3. Finally, one of the other concerns was 'ease of use.' Again, not a problem from my perspective. The scanner was set up and running perfectly within ten minutes (from box to perfect picture).
The quality of the photos and documents is very good from my perspective. I tested the scanner using the printer, sending a picture to an email, saving a scanned picture to a file, and including a scanned picture in a Word document. All functions worked flawlessly. What more could I ask? Well, maybe one thing. The scanner could be a little faster. It is not actually slow - just not real fast. Conclusion: All things considered, I do not think you can go wrong with this scanner.
11 Save your money, there are better ones
I could not install this scanner in my new computer. There were problems with the software with windows XP. The bundeled photo editing software that came with it was the only part that did install; did not need it as I have much better ones now. The drivers and the smart scan function would not install. After many tries and several frustrating days, I returned it to the place I bought it on advice from some other experts in computer science.I cannot recommend this to anyone as one other person rated here, It is a dog. I then bought an HP unit that installed easily with no problems and it works great. My advice is to spend a few extra bucks and avoid the hours of frustration that I had.
12 Horrible slide scans
Despite Epson's marketing of this scanner as being excellent for scanning slides, My experience has been the pits. When I tried to scan slides that have excellent detail, exposure, and clarity the scanned images are anything but. The shadow areas come out so dark that you can't make out any detail what so ever in the shadow areas. When you go to editing to try to correct this you loose alot, and I mean alot of detail in the highlight areas. When I try to scan slides that were taken at night, again despite excellent detail and exposure most of the time the scanner tells me the slide isn't there or it's improperly placed although it is there and properly placed. On the rare occasion when these slides do scan the color of the scanned slide is very wrong (ie: a waterfall that is light up against a night sky) in the slide the waterfall is a whitish yellow and you can clearly see the detail of some rocks that do not have water rolling over them. The same image scans with the waterfall being a red-orange and with the water that is at the bottom going into the river being a bright sunshine yellow, as well as no detail of the rocks that have no water rolling down them at all. If this is what Epson calls excellent, I would hate to see what they call bad. I have been on the phone with support from Epson and the people who have developed the software bundle that comes with the scanner, which by the way are all long distance calls. None of these company's have toll free numbers, which begins to add up very quickly. Not one of these company's had any answers for me, they just kept referring me back and forth between the software companies and Epson. I did this for two weeks in good faith trying to resolve these issues. I am now done with it, I have decided to return the scanner to the place of purchase for a full refund. PERIOD!
13 Its GREAT!
I just love this little photo scanner. It is great for slides as well and is fast and very easy to use. The instructions can be a little difficult but you can work through them. Open the reference and instructions with your internet browser. It is just perfect!
14 Great!
It's the scanner for you. Allows for scanning slides and negatives, not to mention flatbed scanning. Running OS X? No need to worry. Just download the driver from Epson, and away you go. Running on Mac OS X 10.2.3
15 Don't know why others are complaining
I don't know why others are having problems. I bought this scanner for my father for christmas and it works great. He also has an HP printer and we have had no problems getting the scanner to copy directly to the printer.
The text on the control panel is fine. I have never even looked at the manual.
The only thing that doesn't work right is the scan to e-mail. The only e-mail program it will scan to is outlook express. My fathers computer has Netscape Mail and the full version of Outlook on it but these don't show up as options when scanning to e-mail.
I love the fact that it finds the edges of the photo being scanned and only scans the appropriate area. There is no need to do any cropping with an editing program when the scan is done. I may have to buy one for myself.
16 Great Scanner at a LOW price!!
I am a computer and printer tech for a living so I get to use a lot of products! Recently I needed a scanner so I got the Epson 1260 after reading all the bad reviews about HP Scanners. I have always liked HP products and I also had an Epson printer was not so good, so I was a little leery about going with Epson. I had NO problems setting it up and found all the functions to work properly, even the copy function worked with my HP LaserJet! Also the OCR software that Epson provided seemed to work great in my tests. Overall I am impressed with this scanner and for the price I think the quality would be hard to beat.
17 The "ghost" scanner
I installed this scanner onto my system and I use a HP printer. Everything seemed to work until I began trying to make a copy. The scanner would not let me make a copy. I tried every technique imaginable. I read the help files, read the manual and still nothing. I thought there was something wrong with the scanner so I decided to phone epson tech support as my last resort. I couldn't believe what I was told. I was told in order for my printer to work I had to install a "ghost" printer driver for an Epson printer so the software would work and let me have the option of copying a document. Why on God's earth would I have to install an Epson Driver when I had a HP printer. To make this frustrating story short Epson has pulled a fast one and made their scanner proprietary meaning it will only work if their printer is set as the default printer. Doesn't seem like a big deal does it? Try printing a document using your printer and you will find it won't print because the default printer is a ghost printer. So what you have to do each and everytime you print you have to go to the device manager and switch between your printer and the epson "ghost" printer as your default. Tech support told me they don't have a fix for this problem. Wow what a pain. If I am scanning the default printer is the Epson "ghost". But to print this I have to change in the program to my printer so I can get my "copy" as requested from the scanner. But you can't forget to switch the default printer in the device manager when you are printing from any windows program or the internet. I took it back!! I don't have the time or the patience to deal with Epsons way of doing business. Think about it, you would think a scanner is to work on its own merits but Epson has made it only able to work without grief if you own one of their printers. Thanks but no thanks. Back to HP for me.
18 Excellent Scanner!
I do a lot of scanning for print & video professionally, and I bought this scanner over the weekend after my old scanner bit it.
The coolest feature: When I placed several photos on the scanner, the scanner recognized the individual pictures and placed each scan in a separate file, each aligned perfectly. Drool-worthy feature.
It works with Mac OS X Jaguar. Download the latest driver...
It scans negatives and slides. Since I have tried this before with my digital camera, I really want to see this feature in action. I placed the slide in the holder, placed the backlight on top of it, and placed them on the flatbed (note: align the two arrows). It scanned the negative, inverted it, and placed the resulting image in Photoshop Elements. Cool.
I highly recommend this scanner for consumer & moderate prosumer use.
Updates (6/19/03): The auto detection of multiple photos on the flatbed will fail one out of 20-30 passes, not too bad. Also, the film/transparency scans are very low resolution. The resulting files will not be print worthy, but they'll look great. Still lovin' it.
19 Excellent Scanner!
I do a lot of scanning for print & video professionally, and I bought this scanner over the weekend after my old scanner bit it.
The coolest feature: When I placed several photos on the scanner, the scanner recognized the individual pictures and placed each scan in a separate file, each aligned perfectly. Drool-worthy feature.
It works with Mac OS X Jaguar. Download the latest driver from Epson's website.
It scans negatives and slides. Since I have tried this before with my digital camera, I really want to see this feature in action. I placed the slide in the holder, placed the backlight on top of it, and placed them on the flatbed (note: align the two arrows). It scanned the negative, inverted it, and placed the resulting image in Photoshop Elements. Cool.
I highly recommend this scanner for consumer & moderate prosumer use.
20 I took it back
One Saturday morning my old scanner bit the dust. I needed a scanner that weekend, so some research, store visits and reading were required. I finally narrowed my choice to this model and a Canon that didn't do photo negatives. The rebate on this model swayed me along with the capability (although will I use it?) of doing negatives. Well, let's sum it up by saying that after 10 frustrating days, I took it back and got the Canon. Functionally, the 1260 worked fine...quiet and quick. But the software was [horrible]. The Epson Control Panel had text that showed up in different fonts if it showed up at all (I had to constantly open the help file to see what a panel should look like and to figure out what the buttons and text boxes should say). Also, although some functions worked fine, I was unable to save a scanned file as a TIF or BMP and have it import with any quality into PageMaker. My old ...scanner did this just fine at 200 dpi for the size I needed. Anyway, I contacted the help sites for the scanner and a separate site for the software (even though it's got Canon's name all over it, they don't support it), and after 9 days had heard nothing from either of them. Think twice before you purchase this dog. In fact with that type of customer service, maybe Canon isn't a good choice at all.
