Epson Perfection 1260 Photo

Aimed at those who want to do more than simply look at their photos, the Perfection 1260 Photo is primarily designed for the first-time PC user. Operation at the touch of a button, a bundled image-editing suite and plug-and-play installation provide everything you need to get it going in a flash.

If nothing else the Perfection certainly looks the part: its slim, light and curvy case will liven up any desk. Everything has been kept simple with buttons at the front to scan directly to a printer, an email or a web page, and essential ports tucked away at the back.

Along with documents up to A4 the Perfection can handle 35mm negatives, film and small transparencies using supplied adapters and a plug-in light.

The scanner boasts a 1200 x 2400dpi resolution and supports Epson's Print Image Matching technology, which, it is claimed, can enhance photo prints produced from film scans when used with a compatible printer.

Epson's Smart Panel software deals with all types of scanning jobs, from photo manipulation to photocopying and optical character recognition (OCR). Choose the job, click the appropriate icon and off you go.

The software can automatically detect the type of document being scanned and set things up accordingly, but most users will definitely want to switch to manual operation to preview results, set scan areas and so on.

Although the package is aimed at novices, image reproduction was consistently good in our tests with photos, magazine pages and text documents. The built-in Presto OCR was a bit more hit-and-miss, especially when it comes to keeping layouts, but accuracy wasn't bad at all. However, the scanner does take quite a while to warm up.

For image manipulation you get ArcSoft's Photo Impression 4. Though not exactly Photoshop, it handles the basics, such as red-eye reduction, resizing and special effects. That said, it can be slightly more complicated than Epson's own software simply because it has a custom interface rather than a standard Windows one.

This is an easy-to-use, affordable starter package, particularly suited to anyone with lots of old slides they would like to store digitally.

DETAILS
Contact: Epson 0800 220546
www.epson.co.uk