Alan, firstly, if a scan is out of focus, sharpening won't help it much. Secondly, the V600 is a low-end product, so there is limit to what you can expect from it. Thirdly, nonetheless, it should provide a reasonably well-focused, decent resolution scan at least of flat documents (assuming you've set the resolution high enough). If it doesn't, this means there could be a hardware problem requiring a chat with Epson tech support.