Epson Expression 1600

PC connectivity is via both USB and SCSI should you need a performance boost, and if you need to go that one step further, Epson is also offering an optional IEEE-1394 interface for an additional £195.

The driver has some good professional features such as manual focus, unsharp mask, gamma and shadow and highlight controls, which will be great for optimising images. However, it was difficult to set the software up for a neutral setting, as moving one slider down often moved another one up to compensate. A menu for selecting the destination such as OCR, fax or photo was present, but there was no neutral setting. The best compromise is to click the Customise button, deselect all the options and set the Gamma to 100, although this often meant losing my previewed scan while adjusting.

Bundled software includes the fantastic Adobe Photoshop Limited Edition. Although it doesn't have some of the advanced options such as Histogram analysis, it will certainly cover most of your photo editing requirements in a well-featured and professional package.

The Epson Expression 1600 offers reasonable value for money at £544. With some high-end professional features and a very impressive 1,600ppi optical resolution, it also performed well in our tests. Unfortunately it falls down in other areas. While its performance is acceptable, it's difficult to justify its price when a scanner costing less than a quarter of the price is outperforming it in some tests. If you're looking for the ultimate resolution and are prepared to pay the price then this is the scanner for you, but if you don't think that you're going to use the extra optical 400ppi, the Perfection 1200PHOTO certainly offers better value for money.

Author: Ben Hardwidge