Customer Reviews:
 NICE unit! ...but not too speedy... November 18, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
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.
 Great !!! Bought for scanning slides. November 17, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I have owned several scanners including two pro-sumer grade Epsons, a UMAX, and 3 Microteks (one pro-grade). Only one of my former scanners did a respectable job with slides and it cost around $1,000 about two years ago. This Epson does an equivalent if not better job than the high end Microtek I used that cost 5 times as much. Slide scanning with a flat-bed has never been so good as it is now with this Epson. Scan times seem just under one minute per slide at 2400 dpi. Set-up was quick. Very pleased.
A great scanner November 14, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I am using the Epson V500 with Windows Vista and the results are excellent. The software installed without a problem. Refer to the users manual for details. Several hundred slides, Polaroid's and prints have been scanned and the results printed. This is a well-made machine, easy to set up (do refer to the user manual) and fun to use. The greater the resolution of your scan the longer it will take to complete your task. It is worth the time and effort.
I like it - I like it November 9, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
After getting a headache with an HP scanner that we bought, returned, we ended up shopping once again for a scanner that would handle the photos, slides and negatives that I have.
This is the scanner. Honest. It was easy to load, and I was working with the scanner within a half hour testing the basic full scan mode, which I love. I started reading other reviews after we bought this scanner and kept it in mind when I was going to start all of my projects.
I will be savings LOTS and LOTS of money by doing my own scanning with this Epson scanner. I was taking my negatives into a professional lab to have put on CD - now I can do that myself. I don't need to use any of the advanced features as I like to use Photoshop Elements to correct any flaws, coloring, scratches.
It honestly did not take that long to scan from the negatives and/or slides. I wish you could scan more than 4 slides at a time, but that is fine. I like how you can just "drop" in the slides into the holder and then just pick up from the sides - never having to touch the glass or the slide itself. The negative holder could have been done a little better, but it is very doable.
The scans themselves are really good and decent. When I fixed my first photo from a negative scan it was unbelievable. I had to fix the normal dust and scratch marks in Elements, but it didn't really take that long and I enjoy working with that program.
Am I happy customer - YES, very happy!!!!!! I am an amateur photographer who loves taking pictures - thousands every year and this scanner will become one of my favorite pieces of computer equipment to be using as I still have thousands of negatives and hundreds of slides that I want to scan in...I think I will be kept busy for a while.
The only other thing that I didn't like is that each time you want to do a new scan you have to go back into the scan program instead of it just waiting for the next scan - which I can live with. I like how you can change settings for each individual scan also if you would like.
A+++++ all the way for me on this scanner. HP could look at this scanner and improve on theirs - and I used to be a dedicated HP computer person.....
Best scanner I've ever used October 29, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Works great with Windows VISTA. I've used many scanners, starting with one of the original hand scanners, the most recent being an excellent HP scanner. But the Epson Perfection V500 Photo is by far the best scanner I've ever used. It's fast, quiet, and "smart". It easily identifies separate photos put on the glass at the same time (something other scanners did not do). The built-in adjustment features, such as color correction (which I use in the HOME mode), are as good as manual adjustments in Photoshop. But the real strength comes with the built-in slide and negative scanning capabilities. The ICE feature fixes scratches and dust spots brilliantly. Yes, it slows up the scanning operation, but compare it to manually fixing the flaws in photo-editing software and you realize the time is well spent. Eighty-year-old slides come out looking as if they were taken yesterday. Similarly, the V500 does a wonderful job with negatives, both color and black-and-white. Any negatives? Well, I wish it had a larger photo bed big enough to handle over-size photo album pages, but I can make do with the size in exchange for its excellent features and quality of output.
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