Customer Reviews

Epson Perfection V500 Photo Scanner (6400dpi, 3.4 Opt Density, USB 2.0)

5 star:		(61)
4 star:		(30)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

Traded up from Epson 4180 after 4 years of trouble free use to the new V500 from the award winning V Series. Huge improvement on scan speed and resolution. Colour rendition true to Epson scanners, brilliant. When coupled with Adobe's PSE version 7, makes light work of editing faded photo's. Compared to the 4180, the V500 is quiet...........really quiet. Warm up time is almost instant. Well made, not flimsy in any way. Have looked at HP's range of 6 colour scanners which although are great for documents, need a lot of tweaking to reach the instant standard of the V500. Well worth the money.

I've grown up with digital photography but in the past few years have been increasingly interested in film. After amassing a hefty pile of prints and negatives and not being too happy with the resolution most photo labs provide, I purchased this Epson V500 scanner.

In my search I compared this Epson V500 to the similarly priced CanoScan 8800F Film Scanner but went with the Epson due to the inclusion of hardware-based ICE technology. I also looked at some HP photo scanner models but shied away due to some reviews noting the slow scanning speeds. Both this Epson and the Canon use an LED light source, as opposed to the old fluorescent lamps used in traditional scanners, which reduces warm-up time.

Unboxing and installing was very easy on my 13" Macbook. Sadly, the first scans weren't impressive; the software was a little fiddly to get used to and dust was showing up on my negative scans. However, after turning on the ICE (which increases scan time through scanning the transparencies with an infra-red beam) the scans came through very well, with minimal sharpening needed and almost all dust and scratches removed from the negatives.

This Epson V500 also comes with text-recognition software, to convert printed text back to digital. I found this software was very useful and with the minor exception of not being able to recognise words next to handwritten annotations, very easy to use.

A very nice flatbed scanner for scanning negatives and other transparencies. Also functions as a good traditional scanner for converting prints, paper and other documents. Highly recommended.

This is a fabulous product at a fabulous price. I wanted to scan old family photos, some dating back to the early 1900s that were not in good shape. The scanner is not only easy to use but the results are excellent. There are slide cases, too, for scanning slides, which I haven't tried yet. I scan from Photoshop. Just go into Photoshop and select File - Import - Epson V500 and it's done, or you can simply press the scan button on the front of the machine. Scanners I have used in the past have been confusing and complicated - not this one. The machine wants to scan at 100%, but you can easily adjust the pixel amount in the Customize menu. This is great for my old photos, some of which are quite small. I have a great photo of a Victorian family gathered under an oak tree, complete with big mustaches and wasp waists. The picture is sadly fading, but the scanned image is a great improvement and has brought back a surprising amount of lost detail simply with Auto Contrast. You can also scan documents - if you are into family trees, this means wedding certificates etc - and you can even scan useable text. The quality of this scanner is great. Unless you are a professional photographer, why spend more?

I bought this scanner because I have a very large collection of 35 mm colour slides that I have taken over the last 45 years (most of them with an Asahi Pentax Spotmatic SLR camera) and I needed to convert the slides into images that could be stored on a computer. Many of the older slides were beginning to deteriorate - dust and fungus were beginning to spoil some of them, and the cardboard slide holders were starting to come apart. I therefore decided to digitalize the slides, and bought the Epson V500 Photo scanner to use in conjunction with Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 (bought separately). The work will take a very long time, but so far, I am absolutely delighted with the results. It took a little while to learn how to get the best out of the scanner - the instructions that are included on the scanner's software DVD are rather skeletal - but once I had got the hang of it, I found that I could reproduce the slides with quite dramatic results. In my experience, it's essential to scan at over 3,000 dpi. The resultant images are large enough to be manipulated using Photoshop Elements, and it's possible to obtain really sharp results, faithful to the original colours and with as much contrast and colour saturation as one desires. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this scanner very strongly indeed. You have to be prepared to do some experimental work to get the best out of it, but it's worth persevering, and for most ordinary purposes, the scanner works extremely well straight out of the box. A marvellous piece of kit in my view, and if you're a photography enthusiast, a really good investment.

Having used this to scan in a mixture of about 1000 colour slides and photographs (no negatives yet) I think I've given it a suitable outing.

As far as scanning slides goes:
After a few hours of testing I came to the conclusion that scanning above 6400dpi is a waste of time and disk space, there's no difference when all images in higher res are scaled to same size on screen. This is not a problem as it still gives images approx 8800x6000 pixels.
I find the only software option that can't be done in post processing (Photoshop, Lightroom etc.) is the Digital ICE. This is pretty damn good! From my experience it struggles with slides older than c1985, introducing artefacts in areas of high contrast. On new slides it is pretty faultless, maybe a touch less sharp, but then that can be tweaked with a little USM in Photoshop. It deals with everything but the chunkiest of dirt and scratches so as you'd never know anything had been erased.
I prefer to leave all other options turned off so I have a copy of the slide 'as is', I can then use non-destructive editing (Adobe Lightroom) to tidy up colour and further imperfections.
Results do surpass my expectations.
To scan 4 slides at 6400dpi it takes about 12 minutes. Not fast but nowhere near as slow as others. It is worth the wait because the results are more than adequate for family snaps. Professional photographers would probably be disappointed with the optical density, but what do you expect for this price range? 99% of the time though, after a few level adjustments etc, you end up with something you'll be happy to print at just about any sensible size.

Scanning reflective:
Photos etc. seem to be turning out (on a Spyder3 calibrated screen) more or less the same as originals.
The 'Descreening' option in the software is pretty useful as this is *very* hard to do in Photoshop. I scanned an old black and white photo from a magazine that had been dot printed, or screen printed I guess. Normally, when enlarged this would have looked pretty bad, but with the descreen option it gave a superb, smoother, starting point for a few manual adjustments. I was very pleased with the resulting printed enlargements.

In Summary:
Pros - Good enough resolution, colour and general quality to satisfy all but the fussiest, or pros. Certainly fine for archiving family albums. Pretty straight forward software with good features, even the professional and fully manual scan area selection mode is easy to use. Solid build quality, after over 1000 scans nothing is coming loose or broken. Digital ICE is a must if the transparency is relatively new and good quality but maybe dirty or dusty.
Cons - Only scan 4 slides at a time. Placing multiple photos on the bed can be tricky to get straight, maybe some sort of guide grid overlay would be useful. Documentation leaves a lot to be desired, seems to give you the basics and then leaves you figure out the advanced, and possibly more obscure features, on your own. Took me ages to work out that un-ticking the 'Thumbnail' option (on by default) lets you manually select the areas to scan and manually enter scan dimensions - very useful.

I wanted a scanner to copy my slides and negatives that I accumulated over the last 40 years. After much research, I chose the V500 over the Canon 8800F, mainly based on the reviews on Amazon and other review sites. I had considered the much cheaper devices that are adverstised in the newspapers and shops such as Maplin, but decided against them as most reviews didn't rate them very highly. I also considered the more expense Nikon, but decided that as my negatives had been processed by the high volume processing centres, it was probably not really worth it. I think I've been proved right. Having copied about 100 slides and negatives so far, I'm very happy with the results. I'm using the scanner on an iMac running OSX 10.6 (Snow Leopard). I just downloaded the driver and the Epson Scan software from Epson's web site. I didn't bother loading the CD. It also came with Adobe Elements 6, but as I have Adobe Photoshop CS4, I didn't load that either. It's best to use the Professional mode as it gives you more control over the scanning process. I've also found that gently cleaning the slides/negatives with a lens blower/brush before scanning gets rid of most of the dust. I've used the Digital ICE (lite option) and have been happy with the results so far. It is worth reading the online documentation first - it saves time in the long run. It's also worth noting that although the frame for negatives holds 2 strips of 6, most developers cut the film into strips of 4, so you can really only do 8 negatives at a time. However, it only takes a minute to unload / load, so it doesn't really matter. I would recommend this unit for anyone that has the same need as me.

Like the previous reviewer I bought this scanner since I wanted to scan a lot of old family photos and documents. I also wanted something to use as a general purpose scanner for my home based business. The results are amazing! I cant fault this piece of kit and I've used it a lot. It's also great for scanning documents to PDF and attaching to emails etc.. The software that comes with the scanner is easy to use too. I've tried scanning at high resolution settings and lower and this scanner never fails to deliver. Negative and slides are exceptional quality too. It's very quiet - handy for scanning late into the night and not disturbing others in the house. Don't worry about parting with your hard earned cash on this scanner - just buy it - it's a real steal at this price and you will not be disappointed.

I got this to replace a defunct Minolta film scanner and a Lexmark all-in-one where the printer doesn't work.

Easy to set up, no problems with installing software. I like the catches on the lid hinge meaning it doesn't need holding up all the time.

Scanning documents and photos works well - software fine and produces good results. My only gripe here is that the dust removal algorithms often create their own artefacts.

Scanning negatives / slides was a major disappointment. OK its quick, but both negatives and slides are out of focus, slides especially so. Whilst the colours are OK the sharpness only merits a resolution of 1000dpi or so.

The software also crops significantly - and uncontrollably from film / slides. Occasionally it won't recognise a frame properly, and it will never pick up those interesting incomplete pictures at the beginning or end of films. Within these limitations, ICE can work wonders with filthy originals.

Good enough for Facebook, maybe, but totally inadequate for the acrchiving job I needed to do. I've since invested in a second-hand Nikon film scanner which produces incomparably better results. It's slower, noisier, and the software's antique, but it does what I need, which the Epson doesn't come near. I'll be keeping it as a decent flatbed scanner only.

Received the V500 3 days after ordering. I've had this scanner one day but wanted to share my experience quickly to all those Mac Pro (Early 2009) users who use Snow Leopard.
I read numerous reviews for the Canon and HP scanners of this price range and finally selected the V500 because of its reported better quality scanning and ability to better handle multiple photo scans.
Now, I have not had time to test the full functionality or quality of slide or negative scanning. With photo reflective scans it does a fine job at high speed tested over different setting and in auto mode.
Online manual looked good and I like the way it allows me to control where scans are located on the computer

THE DOWN SIDE and the reason I only give the V500 4 stars is the lack of good setting up documentation, and I don't really believe a product should be judged on its initial setup documentation.

I suggest users DO NOT use the V500 CD-ROM if you are a Snow Leopard or Windows 7 user. There is a piece of loose paper (A5 size) included in the box that refers to these operating systems WEB SUPPORT Sites but
Does Not tell you to go to these sites BEFORE installing from the CD ROM. I initially used the CD ROM and then looked at the support sites - WRONG - I had to uninstall all the software and reinstall using
the Web Site procedures.
THESE INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS WERE EASY to follow and allows you to install the Scanner drivers without the Epson printer drivers (this took an age from the CD). It was so simple, Epson should be more
explicit about the use of that little bit of paper.

I read the one star reviews that referred to the buttons not working on the scanner. THIS happens because the CD ROM was used and is not always compatible to the operating system. AS I found out too my cost in time.

STILL An Excellent Scanner - I hope this review avoids potential buyers falling into the same trap I did.

I am delighted with the scanning performance of my new Epson Perfection V500 Photo, which to date I have been using mostly to scan 35mm colour negative film and black and white 120 negative film. The results are much crisper than the Epson Perfection 2400 Photo and far less noisy than the Minolta Dimage Scan Dual 111 that I used previously.

Regrettably that is not the whole story. The Professional Mode of the Epson Scan software needs further development for use when scanning negatives. With Thumbnails selected, each time the Histogram Adjustment is opened the Output values default to 18 and 209. If there is a good reason for this, the documentation doesn't give any clues why it should be so. There does not seem to be any way to change these default values, so I have to reset them every time to the values I require. Similarly, when the Histogram Adjustment is closed, then Unsharp Mask defaults to On, and there does not appear to be any way to change the default to Off. I have written to Epson about these issues. They have acknowledged my questions and promised a reply, but some 10 days on they have not as yet responded further. In the meantime, I can of course reset the values I want each time I open the Histogram Adjustment panel. But, it would be less irritating and speed things up if I didn't need to do so.

Further, the plastic frames provided to hold negatives and slides are clumsy to use. The plastic slide-in holders provided with the 2400 Photo were much easier to use, to the extent that I have made myself cardboard jigs to hold the 2400 Photo plastic negative frames in the correct position on the V500 Photo. My solution must have at least doubled the rate at which I can copy negatives, and substantially reduced the risk of getting finger marks on them.

In sum, the scanner produces excellent results matching my needs and expectations. However, it is less than a pleasure to use. The high tech expensive bits work well, but the cheap bits do not. The ship is being spoiled for a halfpenny worth of tar. The software could and should be sorted out quickly, once Epson acknowledge the need. The plastic frames provided to hold negatives and slides need to be re-thought and re-designed, and the new frames provided free to all current V500 Photo users.