EpsonExpression 12000XL-PH Flatbed Scanner

I have used a lot of scanners over the years, most manufacturers have dropped support for the good scanners. Despite the price tag, this scanner is excellent for medium and large format film. It is far better than the consumer flat beds. It have run a few test scans and the results are very sharp. I'll be keeping this for my film photography workflow. Highly recommended!

I had the prior model of this scanner. It started scanning with horizontal lines. Authorized repair facility said repair cost would be $2000, to told them to junk it. I bought the new model for $3700. It's WORSE than the old one. Now I have to pack this HUGE, HEAVY box of junk up to send back.Give me a root canal instead!

I bought this scanner to scan a variety of things: photos, documents, books, and 3D objects. The image quality is superb and the depth of field is amazing; with the adjustable focus it will handle nearly anything I can throw at it. Text near the spine of a book lifting off the glass doesn't faze it at all. The included SilverFast software, which influenced my decision to buy this scanner, was a big disappointment. It worked okay initially, but then started producing soft-focus scans even though the previews were sharp. I downloaded and installed the latest version, but had no luck. It seemed to have lost the ability to control the focus of the scanner. I switched to Epson's own software, EpsonScan2, and that has been working well, if not as elegantly as SilverFast. EpsonScan2 has no problem adjusting the focus, either automatically or manually. I was worried that in switching to Epson's homegrown software I'd be giving up a lot of image adjustment capability, but that hasn't been the case. Although you have to dig down a bit in the menus to find them, there are a lot of manual controls to tweak your scanned image. I'd say it's about on par with Microtek's ScanWizard software, as far as manual controls go, they're just a little harder to get to. Given the size, resolution, and dynamic range that this scanner is capable of, it desperately needs a USB3 interface. Large scans are painfully slow with the scanner being throttled by the USB2 interface. Also, the fan is quite noisy. If the scanner is near your desk - and how do you get any work done if it isn't? - the whine of that fan gets old real fast; it's at an especially annoying pitch. I've had no real problems except for the scanner and software occasionally locking up when I try to perform an auto-focus on a small scan area. After power cycling the scanner and restarting the software, the exact same auto-focus usually works. It wastes a little of my time, but I eventually get the scan. So to sum up, it's far from perfect, but it works 98% of the time, and when it works it works spectacularly well.

the 12000XL no longer has the functionality of working as a networked ethernet scanner [!}; at this price it should. Its previous version, the 10,000XL DOES accommodate a circuit card accessory to give ethernet connectivity and this makes a huge difference. Both models are excellent scanners, the best I have found for large format work but the loss of ethernet is very puzzling...only USB2 now. EPSON TECH SUPPORT HAD NO EXPLANATION FOR THIS. The 10000XL is still available.

I had an older Epson flat bed scanner that worked well, but was really slow. I've owned and sold two different drum scanners which are great but for quickly processing a full roll of negatives, forget it. With this scanner you can load up two film holders at a time so if it is 35mm that's 48 frames of film at once. Silverfast will batch scan it. So once you get everything adjusted, you hit a button and walk away. You will need to pay around $100-$150 to upgrade the bundled version of Silverfast for this feature, however. The scans are very sharp. On typical snapshot rolls of 35mm film there is not a great deal of difference between this and a drum scan - although you are limited to 2200 dpi so on a 35mm frame that is not a lot of resolution. But I love the scanner, it is built commercial-grade through and through. Highly recommended.

This cost way more than I intended to spend, and wouldn't have spent that much if there had been a less expensive option to recreate and save the thousands of family photos that I inherited. However, there are no other options that could handle the various sizes, shapes, etc of the photos I needed to archive. The learning curve for using the system is pretty high at first, but once I found some YouTube videos to help me, and read (thoroughly) the manual, I was able to figure it out. Once started, I managed to get through my project fairly quickly, and the scans I got from this unit were very satisfactory. Overall rating isn't 5 stars due to the cost, and the difficulty of using when you first start trying to do scans. Other than those issues, its a great machine.

Epson knows a great deal about scanning. This is an older product with only USB 2 interface so it is not a high productivity item. The "manual" is practically non-existent. I have a great deal of experience with scanners but making this work wasted a great deal of time. I finally tried their tech support - at least the offer tech support. The problem was that the positioning of the film holder must be offset from the side & top on the scan glass. It took 3 different techs over 3 days until I reached a "senior" tech that figured out the problem. All could have been avoided with any sort of an adequate manual. After all that, the scanner works well. I compared the scans from this scanner to the same films scanned on 2 other film scanners and the results were good and comparable. Buy this if you need to scan large negative or positive films along with reflective prints up to 12x18.

Been using this scanner at work for years. Excited to finally have one in my studio. Superior product.