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 Electronics : Epson Perfection V500 Photo Scanner |
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Rating:  - 1600 Scanned Photos and Very Happy with this product
I have used this scanner to scan in my grandmothers photos. These were photos she has collected over the past 80 years and they came in types of prints. A wide range of color and black & white film size, shape, quality and type, even pollards. Some images were so faded you could hardly see the colors. I have scanned in a total of 1600 photos. I used the auto settings (increasing the dpi for more important images) and turned on the color correction filter for the older faded images. They all scanned in marvelously in fact most of the old faded images scanned in much crisper and vivid than the original photo. I did find if you try to use the color correction filter on the photos that don't need color correction the color will be distorted and bad so only use the filter when you need it. I had scanned my photo albums in using another Cannon scanner (I paid a lot more for than this one) a couple of years ago and I am much happier with this scanner. The old one clouded up under the glass after a few days use the result was hazy scans, I did not have this problem with this scanner. It is quick and the quality is excellent I highly recommend it. (I have had this scanner for 1.5 months)
I have not used the negative scanning feature yet so I can not say anything about it.
Rating:  - Great scanner, but you need other software
I just replaced my old workhorse Epson Perfection 3170 scanner with this V500. I agree with the other reviewers about the performance of the machine, and the power of Digital Ice, which I also have on a dedicated Nikon film scanner. It's terrific to have this available on a desktop unit.
The scanner is quiet and efficient. (When you set it up, follow the directions closely, and don't forget to slide the locks on both the inside and and back of the unit.)
Unfortunately, I also use my scanner to scan printed documents, especially manuscript pages and forms, into Word. This scanner, unlike my previous one, does not include Optical Character Recognition software. As you can see, this can get expensive. My new Adobe Acrobat does include OCR, and you can scan to PDF from either the Scan Assistant or a button on the scanner, but the OCR in Acrobat is not as powerful as other available programs, so if this is a feature you use often, be aware. (If you don't have Acrobat Professional, you will not even have that option). The software that came with the 3170 way-back-when was a lot better, but the scanner did not include Digital Ice and was much noisier.
Epson scanners are great. I'm looking forward to enjoying this one for a long time. (I may have to find a place to set up my old one for document processing, though.)
Optical Character Recognition Software
Abbyy Finreader 9.0 Professional
ScanSoft PaperPort 11
Abbyy USA ScanTo Office
OmniPage 16 OCR Software
Digital Document Software
Adobe Acrobat Professional 9
Photo Processing Software
Adobe Photoshop CS4 Upgrade
Adobe Photoshop Elements 7
PhotoPlus X2 Digital Studio
Paint Shop Pro Photo X2
Rating:  - Could not install with Vista
I started with high hopes, but after 4.5 hours with Epson tech support (level 1, level 2 and level 3 - I now can uninstall and reinstall drivers in my sleep) and 2.0 hours with HP tech support, and another 4+ hours poking around on the Internet for solutions, I never was able to get the thing to work. The drivers would install, but then Vista could not find them. Using Vista Home Premium, SP1. Obviously Vista and the drivers don't speak to each other. Have had no problem with other devices and drivers. Maybe this will be fixed later, but for now it was a frustring and disappointing non-starter for me.
Rating: - no frames to scan old large negatives
I have a lot of old family negatives taken with the 120 and 616 box cameras.
They will not fit in the frames provided with the scanner.
Adobe editing program doesn't work with the Vista operating system.
Rating: - NICE unit! ...but not too speedy...
The Epson V500 Photo scanner is an extremely nice unit. It accommodates photographs, 35mm color negatives and B&W negatives, 35mm mounted slides, large format negatives, and documents up 8.5" x 11" and A4-sized sheets.
The scanned images are awesome! I am extremely pleased with the job this scanner does with my old 35mm mounted slides. I've also had great success scanning old family photos.
Here's how the scanner works:
First of all you must install the scanner software that accompanies this unit. Once you have done that the scanner can be attached to the computer via a USB line. Turn on the scanner's power switch, click on the "Epson scan" icon on your computer desktop, and select the mode that best matches your level of comfort and ability.
The scanner has three main functional modes: 1) Full Automatic, 2) Home, and 3) Professional.
If you are just getting started in the scanning world, select the "Full Auto Mode", place a document, photo, etc., that you want to scan on the glass scanning surface, click the "scan" icon on the Epson scan window and sit back and wait for the results to show up on screen.
Oh, this scanner comes with a set of plastic frames that includes openings that hold up to four mounted slides or up to two strips of six negatives each.
If you are a little more adventurous and want some additional control over the output image you can move up to the "Home mode". This setting lets you choose the document type (photograph, photo negative, magazine page, etc.), the image type (color, grayscale, black and white), and a limited number of image adjustments. FYI - "Digital Ice" technology that automatically optimizes the image, corrects scratches, etc., is available only for photos and photo negatives.
If you want complete control over the the output image, select the "Professional mode." This setting allows you full flexiblity in choosing scanner settings, including sharpness, color, auto-exposure, histogram adjustment, tone correction, color palette access, grain reduction for high speed films, backlighting correction, dust removal, and Digital Ice optimization. Again, remember that the Digital Ice option is available only for photographs, and photo negatives and positives.
The unit looks nice and has a relatively small footprint. That's good because there's not much room on my computer desk.
I have used similar scanners before, and I found the functionality of this model to be quite intuitive.
In addition, the Epson V500 scanner comes with a copy of Adobe Photoshop Elements 4.0. This versatile image manipulation program can be used to work with your images once they are digitized.
I do have a couple of minor complaints about this unit. First, I don't find this unit to be particularly speedy. For example, it takes 45 seconds for this unit to scan an 8.5" x 11" document and generate an image. It takes the unit about 3.5 minutes to scan four slides and generate their images. So, if you are going to be scanning lots of documents or slides, etc., I recommend that you have a book in hand to flip open once you hit the "scan" button. Second, the Digital Ice setting works only with photographs and photonegatives.
All in all, this is a sweet little unit, and it should meet most people's scanning needs.
For the reasons listed above I give this scanner a solid 4-star rating.
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