A winner for slide scanning, February 5, 2008
After extensive research I had the good fortune of looking for a photo scanner at the same time the Epson Perfection V500 became available. After scanning the first batch of 60 slides, I can heartily recommend this unit. The most significant capability of this unit, especially for the price, is the built-in ICE technology for scratch and dust...read full review
After extensive research I had the good fortune of looking for a photo scanner at the same time the Epson Perfection V500 became available. After scanning the first batch of 60 slides, I can heartily recommend this unit. The most significant capability of this unit, especially for the price, is the built-in ICE technology for scratch and dust removal. It is, in a word, astonishing. And, it is saving me many hours of extra work manually doing the same job. There is software-based scratch and dust removal included in the Epson software, but it is ineffective and cannot compare to ICE. I am scanning at 2,400 dpi, more than enough resolution for any practical use other than heavy cropping and enlargement. I use compressed air to "clean" the slides before scanning. When scanning with ICE turned off, the amount of dust marks are amazing. Turn ICE on and 98% of the dust is gone. It does take longer to scan with ICE, but the offset is the time saved many times over not having to manually remove the dust post-scan. Photoshop Elements 4.0 is included. I use Elements 6.0.
So far, the unit has worked flawlessly. Software installed cleanly on first try. Front panel buttons can be reprogrammed for other than the default (e.g., I changed the button for email attachment to launch the OCR to text software included.)
A tip for those who buy this unit for slide and/or film scanning with ICE and scanning 2-4 slides at a time: Click the "All" button in the preview window after prescanning (previewing) the multiple slides to select all slides, then click the checkbox for ICE to insure that all slides are processed by ICE. You won't find this in the documentation or on Epson's website. I spent time figuring out why all 4 slides weren't being processed by ICE (I thought the unit was defective at first because only the first slide, which is selected by default, was being processed by ICE), so now you know without spending the time I did. I have used the scanner for photographs and documents, and have converted articles to editable text, all with no problems and excellent results. Still, slides/film is where it shines, thanks to ICE. minimize
What a GREAT scanner!!!!!!, September 15, 2007
I just purchased this scanner - primarily to scan my 1000+ slides. At first, I was a bit reluctant because this model is brand new to the market and I was concerned about those inital bugs. But I know that Epson makes a good product so I took the chance. And am I glad that I did. It has some outstanding features:
1. Very simple to set-up and ...read full review
I just purchased this scanner - primarily to scan my 1000+ slides. At first, I was a bit reluctant because this model is brand new to the market and I was concerned about those inital bugs. But I know that Epson makes a good product so I took the chance. And am I glad that I did. It has some outstanding features:
1. Very simple to set-up and then operate. I scanned my first photo within 30 minutes of unwrapping the package. No problems with the software and the on-line User's Manual is really easy to follow.
2. Very fast scanning. The scan (including preview) of photos is unbelievably fast. But I was really surprised at the speed of scanning slides. A normal scan (without using Digital ICE correction) of 4 slides took less than 5 minutes. Compared to some of the other products, I've been reading about this is lightning speed.
3. Very quiet. When scanning photos, you can barely hear it. A little more noise when scanning slides, but certainly not bothersome.
4. Offers 3 modes to choose from - Auto, Home, and Professional. The Auto is the easiest and results in a very good photo. The Home and Professional offer a number of correcting features (more with the Professional mode). I am an intermediate Photoshop user and the Professional mode was as close to using an editing software as I've ever seen. The scan time slows down a bit when you use these correcting tools, but again - no big deal). Once I get the hang of it, I'm sure it will speed up the amount of time I will need with Photoshop.
5. Digital ICE is fantastic! This feature is used when only scanning film or slides. I first scanned slides without using it. The waulity was very good, but my slides are almost 30 years old so there was enough noise (mostly dust)and fade in them to be noticeable (something I was resigned to fix in Photoshop). I then scanned them using ICE and was amazed! The noise was completely gone and the colors were remarkably restored. The Photoshop work is going to be a piece of cake.
6. The price is unbelievable for what you get. I've seen scanners costing much, much more that aren't nearly as good as this one.
In summary, Epson has come up with a real winner. I really can't find anything negative to say. If you're looking for a quality scanner at a great price, look no further. This is the one! minimize
Great scanner, *HORRIBLE* software, November 21, 2007
Initially I was disappointed in this scanner. I was getting artifacts in my scans: posterizing, strange banding (like an old dot matrix scanner) and scans above 2400dpi didn't seem to have any additional detail. For a while I was convinced the optical resolution was 2400 instead of the advertised 6400.
Eventually I discovered that...read full review
Initially I was disappointed in this scanner. I was getting artifacts in my scans: posterizing, strange banding (like an old dot matrix scanner) and scans above 2400dpi didn't seem to have any additional detail. For a while I was convinced the optical resolution was 2400 instead of the advertised 6400.
Eventually I discovered that the Epson software sucks. I would recommend only using the Color Restoration (which seems to be first rate oddly) and Digital Ice options. Everything else seemed to ruin the photos upon close inspection. You will need to make any adjustments in photo shop.
In addition to this, the software is difficult to use. It has an option to save your scanning settings -- but it doesn't work (on OSX at least). I have to set the option manually for every scan. When you preview your scan, sometimes it only selects one photo when you mean to change the settings for them all. Between these two problems, I find myself scanning photos with the wrong settings on a regular basis. As a SW Engineer myself -- this is inexcusable.
Some people have complained the scanner is slow -- it is -- but if you compare specs it seemed to be in line with other scanners of this price.
Despite these problems I give the scanner 4 stars. I own a Canon scanner and the software is *far* worse *and* the image quality sucks, so Epson wins by default: Marginal Software and excellent image quality seem to be a winning combination.
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Excellent scanner!, April 4, 2008
With thousands of B/W film negatives (2-1/4" square, 35mm and half-frame 35mm) and an equal number of 35mm color slides, I was mainly interested in how well this scanner would handle such transparent media. The answer is: very well! Scanning is still tedious, of course, as only 4 slides or 2 medium format negatives can be scanned with each...read full review
With thousands of B/W film negatives (2-1/4" square, 35mm and half-frame 35mm) and an equal number of 35mm color slides, I was mainly interested in how well this scanner would handle such transparent media. The answer is: very well! Scanning is still tedious, of course, as only 4 slides or 2 medium format negatives can be scanned with each pass, but the results are excellent. I've got many hours of work ahead of me, but it's great to know that I'm not compromising on the quality of the output. minimize
Slow. Really Slow. , September 29, 2007
Installing the V500 is a snap, and the scans it generates are excellent. So why am I returning it after just a day? It's too slow by a longshot, for me at least. You might have better luck or more patience.
Plain scans (no dust removal, no ICE) of 35mm negatives (24-bit color, 3200dpi) took 15 minutes each, not 2-3 minutes, like many...read full review
Installing the V500 is a snap, and the scans it generates are excellent. So why am I returning it after just a day? It's too slow by a longshot, for me at least. You might have better luck or more patience.
Plain scans (no dust removal, no ICE) of 35mm negatives (24-bit color, 3200dpi) took 15 minutes each, not 2-3 minutes, like many people report from similar scanners.
The V500 scans paper or photos faster, but still not as fast, and with no better results, than my 1999-vintage HP6100C, including warm-up time for the HP lamp.
From reports on the web, it looks like other Epson scanners have similar problems - they work well for some users but are horribly slow for others. I'm apparently one of the others. Because I didn't find any happy endings for the unlucky owners, I'm not tempted to spend more time troubleshooting. My scanner is going back.
Here are some more details: a preview alone of film took anywhere from 30 seconds to more than 2 minutes. During that time, like during a full scan, Windows Task Manager shows the Epson Scan program using 99% of the CPU and loads of I/O, but not too much memory (over 2GB of RAM remained available).
There could a fix, but I checked for software and driver updates, and all the Epson support site suggested was that I scan with lower resolution. The computer has good specs: XPSP2 Pro, 3GHz Pentium 4 (HT disabled), 3GB RAM, unfragmented SATA drive with lots of space, 256MB GeForce 6800 video, and nothing else on the USB 2.0 hub with the scanner. Epson technical support is only open during regular business hours M-F.
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