The wide-format Epson Expression 12000XL-PH ($3,999) is the professional photographers' version of the Expression 12000XL-GA, an oversize professional graphic artists' flatbed scanner. Essentially, these two machines are the same, except that the PH version comes with a transparency unit for scanning slides, transparencies, and negatives. While you can buy the scanner itself and opt for the transparency unit later, purchasing them together, in the same box, saves you about $130. Either way, its price is substantial for a flatbed scanner, but graphic artists, photographers, and desktop publishers will find the 12000XL-PH a highly accurate and quality tool for digitizing not only slides, transparencies, and film, but also photos and artwork up to tabloid-size (11 by 17 inches).
Big and Formidable
Because the 12000XL ($7,888.00 at Amazon) scans up to tabloid-size pages (or, precisely, 12.2 by 17.2 inches), the scanner's platen (glass scanning area) is twice the size as the one on a standard-size scanner. Without the transparency unit installed, the 12000XL measures 6.2 by 25.8 by 18 inches (HWD) and weighs 31.5 pounds. With the transparency unit installed, it's about 3 inches taller and around 14 pounds heavier. In other words, unless your desk is exceptionally large, you'll need to find another place to put it—perhaps on a countertop or equipment bench, beside your wide-format professional photograph printer.
The maximum resolution is 2,400 by 4,800 dots per inch (dpi), and its control panel consists of a single Scan button and two status LEDs, Ready and Error. Everything else is handled from the bundled software, discussed in the next section. In addition to the transparency unit, you get several adapters, or holders, that hold up to 30 slides, 48 frames of 35mm negatives, eight frames of 4-by-5-inch transparencies or six medium-format transparency strips up to 7.1 inches (18 cm) long. With a few minor adjustments (removing the transparency guide—a very small piece, not the entire transparency unit—and inserting the document matt), the 12000XL-PH will continue to scan non-film or non-transparency originals.
The scanner deploys Epson's ColorTrue II imaging system, which combines Epson MatrixCCD scan technology with an LED light source. Because the 12000XL's light source is LED-based, unlike the more conventional cold cathode fluorescent lamps, it's mercury free and has no warm-up time. The scanner connects to your PC or Mac via an included USB 2.0 cable.
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Installing the Transparency Unit/Software
Whether you buy the PH version or purchase the scanner and transparency unit separately, you must install it before you can scan slides, transparencies, and negatives. The process, which is well documented on Epson's site, entails unlocking the transportation lock on the transparency unit, removing the scanner's lid, replacing it with the transparency unit, affixing the transparency guide, and connecting the unit to the back of the scanner.
This may seem complicated, but I found it quite simple, and finished the procedure in just a few minutes. All that's left to do is download (Epson doesn't include install disks with its scanners anymore) and install the drivers, and then lay out the media you want to scan in the holders. In addition to the drivers, Epson includes LaserSoft Imaging's SilverFast Ai IT8 (a pared down version of SilverFast Ai Studio 8) and IT8 Target for calibrating colors (these are included on a disk in the box), and Epson Scan 2, a download from Epson's site.
SilverFast is a sophisticated scanning interface program that provides intricate controls for setting up and enhancing the quality of your scans, and Epson Scan 2 is Epson's proprietary scanner interface, which is also a capable product. In addition to providing scanning features, Epson Scan 2 also has optical character recognition (OCR) routines for converting scanned text to editable text.
Awesome Scans, Some Waiting
I tested the 12000XL-PH with the transparency unit installed using both SilverFast Ai IT8 and Epson Scan 2 from our standard Core i5 testbed PC running Windows 10 Professional. My test media included photos and illustrations ranging in size from 2 by 3 inches to 11 by 17 inches, as well as several 35mm slides and negatives and a handful of 4-by-5-inch transparencies, at resolutions ranging from 200dpi to 2,400dpi.
No matter what you're scanning—positive photos and illustrations or negatives and slides—you can place multiple items on the platen, and the software will detect and create separate files for each one. I've seen many higher-end scanners, but seldom do they reproduce colors and detail as accurately as this one, and the software transformed negatives to vibrant images, out of the box, without a lot of fussing with settings. (I did, of course, have to tell both Epson Scan 2 and SilverFast the type of media I was scanning.)
How fast the 12000XL-PH scans and saves to a useable file, of course, depends on several factors, including resolution, the size of the media being scanned, and file format. In my testing, Epson Scan 2 averaged just 24 seconds to prescan and subsequently scan an 8.5-by-11-inch photo at 300dpi, and an 11-by-17-inch illustration in 33 seconds. When scanning a 4x-6-inch print to a 300dpi TIFF in SilverFast, it averaged 43 seconds, and an 8-by-10-inch photo averaged 51 seconds.
Slides and negatives are typically scanned at much higher resolutions than photos and graphics, and depending on what you're scanning, you can lay several types of media at various sizes on the platen at the same time. The more objects you place on the platen, the longer the scan job takes. Epson says that the 12000XL-PH will scan a 35mm slide at 2,400dpi in 51 seconds, which is about what I averaged during my tests, give or take a few seconds, depending on the slide. You can place up to 30 slides on the platen at one time.
You get the idea: How long it takes depends primarily on resolution and the number of items. What resolution you should scan at depends on how you plan to use your scans. I scanned one frame of film at 2,400dpi in 41 seconds, and a 4-by-5-inch negative at 2,400dpi in just under 2 minutes. My point? Scanning these types of media takes a while, and the Expression 12000XL isn't particularly faster than its competitors. What you do get with the 12000XL that you don't with most other high-end photo scanners is the 11-by-17-inch scanning area, which not only allows you to scan wide-format photos and graphics, but also, as mentioned, lets you place several more items on the scanner bed at one time.
Big Bang, Big Bucks
The Epson Expression 12000XL–PH is the photographers' version of the 12000XL-GA, a tabloid-size graphic artist scanner. The PH iteration differs from the GA version in that it comes with a transparency unit and adapters for scanning slides, film, and transparencies. The PH model costs more than $3,000, but saves you more than $100 when you buy the scanner/transparency unit bundle. Either version scans exceptionally well and relatively fast depending on the media.
When combined with the bundled SilverFast software or the downloadable Epson Scan 2, you can scan multiple items at the same time, and each one becomes a separate file. At nearly all resolutions, and even the default settings, scans of graphics and photos come out looking terrific, and the Epson Scan 2 software supports OCR, should you ever need to digitize business documents. Granted, this giant, heavy beast of a scanner isn't for everybody, but for those graphic arts and design environments that need to scan slides, film, transparencies, and oversize artwork and photos—and can afford it—the 12000XL will make a valuable addition to your design, layout, and/or photography studio.
The Epson Expression 12000XL-PH is a large, tabloid-size graphics arts and photograph scanner that is compatible with a large array of media and produces excellent output.
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Former Contributing Editor
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