Epson V600 vs Canon 9000F

Great Photo/Film Scanners: Which is Better & Why?

If you’re part of the photo scanning or film scanning niche, or even just have many older photos that you’re looking to scan, you’ve probably found that these two scanners are among your most popular options.  More accurately, you’ve probably seen the question about which is better over and over with answers just saying “I only have scanner X and can tell you what I think”.  Well, the time has finally arrived to give a clear, concise comparison in the ultimate Epson V600 vs Canon 9000F battle! 

Epson V600 vs Canon 9000F Flatbed Scanner Review

These are two of the most popular flatbed scanners for photo, film, and negative scanning, and have been for some time.  New flatbed scanners have been released, but these continue to be better, at least when we’re talking about value for your money.  You can pay 3x-5x as much and buy a newer, better scanner, but we don’t find it necessary.  Quite frankly, we think it’d be a waste of money!

Although both of these were released several years back, they are both Windows 10 compatible flatbed scanners and work with most of the latest software packages available. Depending on what you’ll be doing with the scanners, you probably won’t even need any additional 3rd party software as these both come with some great “included” software. 

Similarities:   

Side-by-side, these two flatbed photo scanners look pretty equal in most of their stats.  Even those that look different are more or less the same.  Take the optical resolution for instance.  Although the Canon 9000F appears to be twice that of the Epson V600, it’s not commonly feasible to use that resolution.  More or less, they will max out around the same level, much lower than what’s published to make file size that is realistic.  Both have similar connectivity, similar stats, scan size, color depth, and publish a dust and scratch remover technology.

Differences:  

We say they “look” equal because although the stats appear similar, there are some large differences, more so even than our Epson V600 vs V550 comparison.  Major points of difference can be found in the software included with the scanners, the dust & scratch removal technology, scan quality, and the price difference between them.  Let’s discuss each in more detail.  

Included Software

Software is important, especially when scanning photos.  Both have one of our favorites, ArcSoft PhotoStudio, so that’s great. Both can do OCR.  The Epson V600 with ABBYY FineReader and the Canon CanoScan 9000F with Canon’s freeware, MP Navigator EX.  Where do they differ?  The Canon 9000F includes Adobe PhotoShop Elements.  A great photo editing software, which we believe puts it out in front of the V600 in the software category if you’re working specifically with new photos more often than anything else.

Dust & Scratch Remover Technology

The Epson Perfection V600 uses Digital ICE, a hardware feature that gives it the ability to detect and remove things like dust, scratches, and hair in both photos and film like magic.  The Canon CanoScan 9000F is a software feature called “FARE level 3” that attempts to do the same thing.  Unfortunately, as you see in the video below, performance falls short of Epson’s Digital ICE technology.

Scan/Image Quality

Although scanning and resolution specs are either the same or show the Canon 9000F as the leader.  In actual testing shown in the video below from the McNamara Report, you’ll see that the Epson V600 actually outperformed the Canon in image quality on both photos and film scans.  It achieved truer colors, higher contrast, and better details in the shadow areas.  Please watch the video below as this is a BIG ONE!

Purchase Price

No matter how often we update this page, prices change constantly, so we won’t attempt to call out price tags here.  But, at the time of this writing, the Canon 9000F was priced significantly higher than the Epson V600.  Check the links below to see the current prices of each at Amazon.

 Current Epson V600 Price at Amazon

Current Canon 9000F Price at Amazon

Conclusion:  

The Canon 9000F definitely has a slight edge on software, but the Epson more than makes up for it with the dust & scratch remover and image quality differences.  Even if the prices were equal, we’d recommend the Epson V600 as the top choice between these two heavy hitters.  But with the price of the Epson being lower, it’s an easy choice for us, giving the Epson Perfection V600 the win in this head-to-head comparison!