If you are shopping for the fastest photo scanner, then let us introduce you to 8 great options. To hopefully meet our readers’ needs, most our picks are great at general scanning but can also take solid photo scans.
Some of the picked scanners are specifically designed for photos, so you should also find a few good options for more specialized needs.
Things To Look For In The Fastest Photo Scanner
Before buying a high-speed photo scanner, make sure that you check the following things:
- Scanning speed at different resolutions.
- Supported photo/document size and thickness.
- Image processing features like cropping, enhancement, red-eye correction, color restoration, or optical character recognition (OCR).
- Transfer interfaces – Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or USB (at least USB 3.0/3.1 Gen 1 is preferable)
8 Fastest Photo Scanners to Buy in 2023
Epson FastFoto FF-680W High-Speed Scanner
Scanning speed: 60 photos per minute at 300 dpi
Capable of scanning 1 photo per second, the Epson FastFoto FF-680W is claimed to be the world’s fastest personal-use scanner under $1,000 MSRP. And notably, unlike the typical non-flatbed scanner, FastFoto FF-680W handles photos with care thanks to SafeTouch technology.
Apart from speed, what’s also nice about FF-680W is its photo-centered processing features such as red-eye reduction, color restoration, auto enhancement, and a few others. Red-eye reduction is particularly notable since no other scanner on our top has it.
In terms of photo size, this scanner is interesting as well – it can scan photos from 3 x 5 to 8 x 10 inches, as well as Polaroid photos and panoramic photos (up to 8.5 x 36 inches). Resolutions go up to 600 dpi and 1,200 dpi interpolated.
Connectivity-wise, FastFoto FF-680W can transfer photos to your laptop or PC via the high-speed USB 3.0 interface or Wi-Fi. USB 3.0 is a particularly nice feature for a photo scanner – photo scans can be pretty large, so the added speed of USB 3.0 will help with processing large photo batches.
Fujitsu ScanSnap iX1500 Scanner
Scanning speed: 30 scans per minute at 300 dpi, simplex, color
The Fujitsu ScanSnap iX1500 scanner is inferior to the FastFoto FF-680W scanner in speed – it can only scan 30 pages per minute at 300 dpi resolution. However, in terms of convenience, iX1500 may be better for you than the FastFoto photo scanner.
The highlight of the ScanSnap iX1500 scanner is its touch screen. With the touch screen, creating user profiles, commencing scanning, and setting scan settings will be much easier than with the FastFoto scanner.
In terms of document size, iX1500 is a little bit more functional than FastFoto FF-680W as well. In normal scanning mode, it accepts documents from 2 x 2 to 8.5 x 14.17 inches. With manual feeding, it takes up to 11 x 17-inch photos.
When it comes to connectivity, iX1500 can transfer photos via Wi-Fi or USB 3.0, so it should be just as fast as FF-680W.
Photo quality-wise, iX1500 should also be close to the FastFoto scanner. The resolutions in iX1500 go up to 600 dpi for color/grayscale photos. This scanner also has a 1,200 dpi setting, but only in monochrome mode.
iX1500 has some image cleanup features, but they aren’t as advanced as in the FastFoto hi-speed scanner – they are limited to simple things like cropping or optimizing contrast.
Brother ADS-2200 High-Speed Scanner
Scanning speed: 35 scans per minute at 300 dpi, simplex, color
The Brother ADS-2200 high-speed scanner is a relatively inexpensive scanner that should offer adequate performance for light-duty photo scanning.
One of the reasons why ADS-2200 won’t be as suitable for high-volume photo scanning as the previous two scanners is the USB 2.0 interface. With small batches of photos, you may not notice the speed differences between USB 2.0 and 3.0. But if you are intending to scan a lot of photos, then USB 3.0 certainly is preferable.
Brother ADS-2200 also doesn’t support Wi-Fi, so it won’t offer you the conveniences of direct uploading to the cloud.
In terms of scan speed and resolution though, ADS-2200 is very similar to Fujitsu iX1500 and even better in some ways. At 300dpi, the black/color scanning speed of ADS-2200 is 35 pages per minute – 5 more than in iX1500. The resolution is the same though – up to 600 dpi or interpolated 1,200 dpi.
Although the resolutions are high in ADS-2200, we wouldn’t expect as good photo scan quality as in the reviewed Fuji and Epson scanners, primarily due to very basic document cleanup features. But to be fair, we can’t complain for the money.
And as for input document size support, it’s pretty decent here – they go from as small as 2 x 2 to as large as 8.5 x 14 (multi-sheet mode) and 8.5 x 34 inches (single-sheet mode). However, we wouldn’t recommend this scanner for panoramic photos since it probably won’t be gentle with them.
Canon imageFORMULA R40 Scanner
Scanning speed: 30 scans per minute at 200 dpi, simplex, color
The Canon imageFORMULA R40 scanner is a little cheaper than the Brother ADS-2200 scanner, and it likewise is slower – according to Canon’s website, the speed in this scanner goes up to 30 pages per minute in color/grayscale simplex mode at 200 dpi.
With that in mind, the Canon R40 scanner would work well for lower-duty photo scanning needs. Furthermore, it would be a good option for you if you want a scanner that will primarily scan documents in decent quality and can also tackle photo scanning.
When it comes to scanning resolution, the Canon R40 scanner will be sufficient for most people’s needs – its resolutions go from 150 to 600 dpi. There’s no 1,200 dpi interpolation, but this probably isn’t a useful feature for most users anyway.
R40 scanner also has some basic image correction features like color correction, color dropout & enhancement, and image rotation – nothing really fancy.
In terms of image size, the Canon R40 scanner is similar to Brother ADS-2200 – the photo sizes go from 2 x 2.1 to 8.5 x 14 inches. In long document mode, you can feed up to 118-inch pages, though we again wouldn’t recommend this scanner for panoramic photos.
With interfaces, Canon R40 offers nothing exceptional as well – it only has USB 2.0, which should be fine for small-batch scanning but certainly not enough for high-volume photo processing.
Epson WorkForce ES-500W Scanner
Scanning speed: 35 scans per minute at 300 dpi, color
The Epson WorkForce ES-500W scanner is in many ways similar to Epson FastFoto FF-680W, but it’s not as photo-oriented. It’s more of a general-purpose high-speed scanner that can produce decent photo scans.
The scanning speed in ES-500W isn’t as stellar as in FF-680W but is still solid – 35 pages per minute at 300 dpi in color mode. This is identical to what Brother ADS-2200 can do, but with the USB 3.0 interface, ES-500W is going to be much faster in file transfer and thus more suitable for high-volume scanning.
Plus, ES-500W has Wi-Fi, so you will be able to enjoy the benefits of convenient uploading directly to the cloud.
The document sizes in ES-500W have a little wider range than in FF-680W – from 2 x 2 to 8.5 x 240 inches. The resolutions are the same though – up to 600 dpi or 1,200 dpi interpolated. But we don’t think that ES-500W will work for panoramic photos as well as FF-680W.
Additionally, since the software in ES-500W is different, you aren’t getting advanced features for photo correction like red-eye correction or color restoration.
All in all, given the features and differences between ES-500W and FF-680W, we’d say that ES-500W is more of a general-purpose scanner. However, thanks to its USB 3.0 and Wi-Fi interfaces, it’s going to be a little more convenient and faster than other general-use scanners on this list.
Brother ADS3000N High-Speed Scanner
Scanning speed: 50 scans per minute at 300 dpi, simplex, color
The Brother ADS3000N is the priciest high-speed scanner on our list. With a daily duty cycle of 7,000 documents – the highest on this list – ADS3000N also is an excellent choice for heavy-volume use.
Although Brother ADS3000N isn’t specifically designed for photo scanning, it has impressive photo processing features. Kofax VRS-certified, ADS3000N is capable of automatic correction, enhancement, cropping, and more to ensure high-quality photo scans.
In terms of speed, ADS3000N is the second-fastest photo scanner on this list, capable of producing 50 300dpi color scans in simplex mode per minute. The file transfer speed will be high as well thanks to the USB 3.0 and Gigabit Ethernet interfaces.
Note that this scanner has no Wi-Fi, so if you rely on wireless connections for file transfer, it won’t be the right option for you.
The resolution in ADS3000N is like in most other scanners on this list – up to 600 dpi or 1,200 dpi interpolated. The document size is also nothing new – from 2 x 2 to 8.5 x 14 inches (multiple sheets) or 8.5 x 196 inches (single sheet).
Brother ImageCenter ADS-2800W Scanner
Scanning speed: 40 scans per minute at 300 dpi, simplex, color
Brother ImageCenter ADS-2800W is a little cheaper than Brother ADS3000N, but it has a few big benefits over its higher-end counterpart.
Perhaps most importantly, Brother boasts about advanced security features, mostly network-related. ADS3000N doesn’t have these, which is probably because it has no Wi-Fi capabilities. With Wi-Fi, network security becomes more difficult than with wired Ethernet.
Secondly, as you might have guessed already, ADS-2800W has Wi-Fi capabilities in addition to Gigabit Ethernet, allowing you to upload scanned photos and other files directly to the cloud.
The third big difference between ADS-2800W and ADS3000N is that the former has a 3.7-inch color touchscreen. The touchscreen is going to make interacting with the scanner software a little bit easier.
Finally, ADS-2800W supports Brothers Solutions Interface (BSI), which allows server-based applications to make Brother scanners (and other Brother devices for that matter) do custom actions. This may be a very handy feature for businesses that already have other BSI devices.
But, of course, cheaper than ADS3000N, ADS-2800W has some shortcomings as well. Perhaps most notably, the USB interface here is only version 2.0, so we wouldn’t recommend scanning a large number of photos via USB in this scanner.
Next, ADS-2800W is a little bit slower as well – it produces up to 40 color scans per minute in simplex mode and 300 dpi. Still, this makes Brother ADS-2800W the third-fastest photo scanner on this top.
There also are some more minor differences – for example, ADS-2800W doesn’t have a paper jam sensor, while ADS3000N does.
Some things are also similar between the ADS-2800W and ADS3000N – perhaps most importantly, ADS-2800W is again Kofax VRS-certified, so it has similar photo processing and correction abilities as ADS3000N. The same goes for scan resolution and document sizes.
Brother ADS-1700W Scanner
Scanning speed: 25 scans per minute at 300 dpi, simplex, color
The Brother ADS-1700W scanner is much less sophisticated than the likes of ADS-2800W or ADS3000N. However it’s a much better option for budget-oriented buyers or light use cases. Still, ADS-1700W has a few novel and interesting things to offer.
For example, instead of traditional USB, ADS-1700W has Micro USB 3.0. This interface is fast and backward-compatible with Micro USB 2.0, so if you’ve been using this interface for your file transfers, then the ADS-1700W scanner might be the right option.
Apart from that, although ADS-1700W is one of the less expensive scanners on our list, it has a 2.8-inch touch screen to make things a little bit easier for you.
The scanning speed in this scanner is relatively low but not too bad – 25 color scans per minute in simplex mode at 300 dpi. And like in other scanners on this top, resolutions go up to 600 dpi, and there’s also 1,200 dpi interpolation mode available.
The max document size is also on the lower end in this scanner – 8.5 x 11 inches – but for many photo needs, this should be quite enough.
Summary
When shopping for the fastest photo scanner, remember that speed and quality are often competing qualities. If your budget is limited, then you will have to choose either one or the other. If you want both, then you will have to look among scanners much pricier than what we’ve had today.
Also, don’t forget about your other needs. Scanners are versatile devices that can process more than just photos. So if you have any other documents to scan, pick a scanner that will do what you want.
