Epson Perfection V500 Photo Scanner

V500 Scanner: 5 STARS, software: 4 stars.Quality: 5 starsEase of use: 5 starsCost: 5 starsFlexibility: 5 starsSoftware: 4 stars (it has some weird quirks, work-arounds are simple)Suits my needs, and for around $200, it's a great deal.I am scanning Kodachrome 64 primarily, for archive reasons. Generally, I've been very pleased. The dust removal feature works nicely almost all the time. I am scanning at 6400 dpi and you can clearly see the KC-64 grain at this resolution. (The scanner "goes to 11" as well: It says it will go to 12,000 dpi, which I haven't used: For KC-25 maybe?) You can see a slight pixelating effect on the grain; but the grain is obvious. It is a notable improvement over my older 3200 dpi scans: Quite noticeable on large (13X19) prints. The color is true. The resulting scans are beautiful and very true to the slide image. The slide holder is very easy to use.I am scanning in the "Professional" mode, using Unsharp Mask checked on and Dust Removal checked on (only these two) and usually run the dust removal at "High" unless it has issues (I've had it do a couple of things I didn't like when set to "High": darkening in star trails on long night exposures and on one shot with climbers on a glacier, it filled in one of the figures (!) well, they were small and dark against the ~white background. That one was kind of humorous actually.)The ICE feature doesn't work well with KC-64. I haven't needed to use it. When using the ICE feature, small highlit areas became grossly exaggerated and looked like little burned-out white glow worms pasted onto the object in the slide: Very ugly effect. I only tried it a couple of times, so I don't know the ins and outs of it.I don't recommend the "color restoration" feature unless you have truly faded or damaged images. It gave weird color shifts when used on regular images.It's slow at 6400 dpi, as expected. It takes about 2 minutes per slide.It has this quirk: I can preview scan four slides at a time (which is nice, less time brushing off the glass, etc.) but when I select all four slides for the final scan (I would prefer to do this and then walk away for 5-8 minutes and do something else while it's scanning) it seems to "forget" my settings on the scan menus. That is: It applies the dust removal feature only to the first scan. Annoying. So, I now preview all together, then scan individually. This seems to do the trick. More than likely, if I read the manual, I could solve this ... (you know: manual, schmanual ...)[Update on 11-Aug-09: I figured out how to make it apply the settings to all four slides: The little check boxes beneath each thumbnail are used to tell it which slides to scan. The blue "select" rings around the thumbnail (click on the thumbnail to activate) are used to tell the SW to apply the settings (such as dust removal) to the scans. I suppose there's some logic there: You may want to select these separately. But how about two check boxes, with labels??]It indicates that you can save your scanning settings - and it does save them; but wipes them out for every preview. If you select the settings saved, you have to re-do the preview scan ... and it wipes the settings again. You have to set options manually after every preview. Another annoying issue. But, once you get into the flow of scanning, it sort of becomes automatic.I've made pdfs and scanned a number of types of photos in color and B&W as well with very nice results. Sometimes it does take a few tries to get the right settings in the "Professional" mode. No big deal. I made one scan in the "Family" mode (or maybe it was "home" mode). It didn't have any settings to choose as a far as I could see and scanned slides at about 300 or 600 dpi. Might be OK for 3X5 prints. Garbage for anything else. Use only the "Professional" mode.I just noticed this on Wikipedia: "Kodachrome 64 and Kodachrome 64 Professional 135 format were discontinued in June 2009" The end of a great era ... I have to admit, I haven't bought any in many years ...[Update on 17-Aug-2009:]I now have about 350 KC-64 scans completed and I am very pleased with the results. I have also scanned about 100 color and B&W prints at from 300dpi to 1200dpi, depending on print size) ranging in size from 8"X10" to 2"X2", again with excellent results. Print scanning is much faster (20-30 sec) than the 6400dpi slide scanning. The only issue with the prints is that the scans pitilessly show up the flaws in the prints: Almost too accurate ... Excellent little scanner. Amazing what this thing does for the money.[Update on 31-Aug-2009:]I have performed about 1000 scans now, about half were Kodachrome 64 slides and amost all the remainder old B&W prints. Most recently, I've scanned some of my old B&W negatives (Bulk Tri-X-Pan 135, developed in Microdol-X 3:1, 75°F, wonderful results) and the resulting scans, though they don't have the tone or character I could acheive in darkroom prints, really came out quite nicely. Color prints also scan very nicely. I will be trying some color negatives soon.I am more and more pleased with this scanner. Now I need to spend some time in Photoshop fixing up the old B&W images (some date back to the 1870s, I'm glad to have these archived in digital now!) Bottom line: Great scanner, great price.[Update on 14-Sep-2009:]I am up to about 2000 scans now, including about 300 color negatives (I think they are Kodacolor 100 -- I didn't shoot the film.) These also come out very nicely. All around consistent, great results.My scanner, purchased earlier this year, included Photoshop Elements 6.0, which does about anything you might want in photo editing if you're not a professional.[Update on 13-Oct-2009:]I've probably done 2500 scans now and I've managed to archive, to digital high-resolution scans, essentially all of my old photos that I really care about preserving (no matter what). I've burned multiple copies on sets of DVDs that are now in various locations for safe-keeping. In addtion, I've been able to post "dumbed-down" versions to the web as sort an ultimate photo album that my family and friends can view anytime they feel like and even make prints from. [I'm fully converted from a rather Luddite, all-manual, all Kodachrome and Tri-X-Pan guy (I never even used the light meters in my cameras, except in very unusual situations) to an all-digital guy (frequently using the auto-focus and auto-exposure modes in my DSLR!) It wasn't even painful.][Update 20-Nov-2009]: I have no idea how many scans I've done now; but the number is large. I am now scanning slides (Ektachrome 100 and Kodachrome 64) at 1200 dpi (less artistically worthy shots, just scanning for completeness and archiving). The great news is: This machine does 4 slide scans at 1200 dpi in less than a minute (no enhancements used.) And the result s plenty good for web use (jpeg of about 1700X1100 pixels, 250KB size). Fast, fast, fast. And they really look great.[Update 10-Feb-2010]: I have now done about 6000 scans, the vast majority on Kodachrome 64. This update is simply to report what I consider a sweet-spot in the dpi for 35mm slides for quality vs. speed. 2400 dpi works very well for almost any use and is much, much faster than 4800/6400/12,000. I note that 2400 dpi on this scanner looks much better than 2400 dpi looked on my old Canon scanner. The great majority of my work will now be at 2400 dpi. 2400 dpi on 35mm (135 format) film full-frame = approx. 3400 X 2260 = 7.7 MPixel which is good enough for almost anything. The KR-64 grain is visible.[Update 22-Mar-2011]: Scan count is about 20,000 now. No issues! I love this scanner!Computer used: Dell Dimension 2400, vintage 2004, ~2.5GHz clock speed, 2GB RAM, Windows XP Professional, very large harddrive.[Update: 22-Mar-2011: New Dell Studio Win 7, 12GB RAM, 1TB HD: Works great, same old scanner, plug and play.]Besides this product, I'm using these with great results:Canon Pixma PRO9000MkII Inkjet Photo Printer (3295B002)Pentax K-x 12.4 MP Digital SLR with 2.7-inch LCD and 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 AL Lens (Black)Pentax 70mm f/2.4 DA Limited Lens for Pentax and Samsung Digital SLR CamerasPentax DA 40mm f/2.8 Ultra Compact Lens for Pentax and Samsung Digital SLR CamerasPentax 100mm f/2.8 WR D FA smc Macro Lens for Pentax Digital SLR Cameras B0013545U2 Da 300MM F4 Ed (if) Sdm Lens Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8 EX DC SLD ELD Aspherical Macro Lens for Pentax and Samsung Digital SLR CamerasTamron AF 70-200mm f/2.8 Di LD IF Macro Lens for Pentax and Samsung Digital SLR CamerasPentax 14mm f/2.8 DA ED (IF) Lens for Pentax and Samsung Digital SLR CamerasThe PENTAX 14mm, 40mm, 70mm, 100mm, and 300mm are very sharp, bright, fast, good contrast, very limited CA. The TAMRON is the best telephoto zoom I've ever used. The PENTAX 300mm DA* f/4 is the best telephoto I've used. The PENTAX DA 70mm f/2.4 Limited is the sharpest lens I've ever used, with 40mm and 100mm macro close behind. The SIGMA is also a great and flexible lens (best at f/5.6 and higher -- for corner resolution).

I finally got a chance to plug this in and try it out with a bunch of slides from 20 - 30 years ago.The unit was fast to set up, and easy to operate. People have commented on how fast/slow it is, but it's all in what you want out of the reproduction in regards to DPI, and other color enhancements you want the scanner to take care of.I've been scanning all day at 1200 DPI, and utilizing all the Epson color correction options. It isn't fast, about 10 minutes per 4 slides, but the results are absolutely perfect IMO. Well worth the wait.The Epson was designed with quality reproduction foremost, not production speed, and is perfect for doing the boxes of slides laying around the house as you have time.It's very quiet, and I do the slides as I'm busy doing other chores on the computer. It doesn't take much CPU time and doesn't interfere with other ongoing software.I would advice taking a portable slide viewer to preview and orient the slides before placing them on the Epson, delete the ones you don't want, and wear nitrile, or dust free cotton gloves when handling the slides and removing them from the platen.We have since scanned all our important 4x6 photo's using the Epson, and with a normal (suggested) setting of 300 DPI, the Epson is very fast, about 5 seconds per photo. (you can select other DPI's) The quality is excellent.I should note that although the standard file format the Epson uses is JPG, you can also select TIFF, which allows you to use photographic software to manipulate the photo afterwards.I advise using the Professional Mode, as it allows you to set all the important parameters, do a preview to see how it looks, and especially with photo's, set the orientation size, as this is the most important setting for speed and scan time. Some photo's will want to be scanned on their 4" side, other on their 6" side. Once you have the settings made and verified, simply press the button on the front of the scanner, switch the photo's and go. Very fast!This unit is well worth the investment, and will solve the problem of restoring memories on older media into digital format.I would strongly recommend the Epson slide scanner to anyone.Regards,Robert KruegerRochester, NY

Right out of the box, this was clearly a nice unit. Set-up was hassle free. I had about 300 old slides to scan, as well as 30 rolls of old black and white 35mm film negatives. The software that came with the scanner had some really nice features as well.I wasn't sure what resolution to set the scans at, so I went on line to get some advice. The prevailing wisdom was 2400 dpi, if you wanted 8 x 10 prints. This resulted in a 20MB file!!! There was a compression setting as well, and I had no idea at all what to set it to, so I experimented, and finally figured out settings that worked. There wasn't really anything in the Epson manual that was very helpful.The actual scans were good - crisp pictures, worthy of printing. However, after about two rolls of film, I unplugged the scanner, boxed it up, and sent it back. My unresolvable gripe? The film holder would not consistently keep the negatives in place. I had to cut the film into 6 negative sections. This film was from the 40's and 50's, and wanted to stay rolled up. I would put it in the film holders, and quite frequently, they would pop open - quite unexpectedly, and I would have to start all over again. The problem is with the design of the film holder. The top sections that hold the film in place have thin sides, and they flex quite a bit, and won't stay locked into place. For me, this was frustrating, wasn't going to get better, and was a deal breaker.I ended up getting a Canon CanoScan 8800F, and it is flawless! The film holders are more robust, and I had no popping open issues at all. The quality was every bit as good as the Epson, and interestingly enough, at a high dpi scan rate (2400), I ended up with about a 2MB file - I am really much happier with this unit.