It doesn't do photos well. Photo paper attract paper dust (from your other scannings) and you get white spots.
This machine is for converting bills and records into pdf quickly. 400 dpi at 10 ppm and 600 dpi are usable - not that much slower for me. For scanning pictures and greyscale, you will need to buy a $80 flatbed scanner. This is a specialized machine, it does not do everything.
The rated 15 ppm is for 11 inch pages. If you are scanning short paper (checks for example) it is faster. My checks scan at 60 checks per minute.
I love my machine for what it does. If you wanted the machine for something other than scanning into a pdf (B/W or color), you will be disappointed. For what it does, it is beautiful.
I haven't checked out the OCR capabilities. I think Acrobat will do it. Frankly, I don't need to OCR my bills and I never use it.