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 was in the market for a scanner to do negatives, slides and prints and this one was recommended by a former colleague that had a side job working in a camera store, that did lots of scanning for clients. This was the scanner she had bought for home use.Figuring that anyone who did this professionally would be able to steer me to the best tool to buy for home use, I'm happy to say she was right.I have a great multi-function printer at home, that has a flat bed scanner, but you can't use those to do negatives and slides. Also since it was the family's printer it was not in a spot convenient to my computer to do one scan after the other.SEAMLESS SET UPThis scanner sets up seamlessly. You have a CD of software and drivers and it takes only a few minutes to get the scanner up and running. I also like the fact that the scanner lid holds it self up when you lift it. That is a simple thing, but when you are scanning a lot of stuff, that is such a convenience.SCANNING SLIDES: QUICK AND EASY.First my boyfriend nabbed it before I even used it and scanned his entire family's collection of slides. This scanner has an attachment that allows you to set in 4 slides at once, to prescan, then you do your final scan to create the file. It does a nice job of incrementing the numbers for you. He complained that he needed to reset the output size with each scan, but I found the way around that was to use a custom setting or not use Thumbnails. He had wanted the output size to be original versus 4 X 6".WORKHORSE.Next I started in on my Dad's collection of prints, albums and negatives. I haven't even gotten out the slides yet. So far I have done over 2000 scans with this. I have this scanner, sitting on my desk, so it is convenient to use. The scanner itself is not that much bigger than it's maximum size scan, so it does not take up much room.QUICK SWAP OUT OF WHITE BACKING MAKE IT EASY TO CHANGE FORMATSThis scanner comes with the plastic parts that set in the scanner to hold slides and film. The white background comes out when you do these transparent media. It is really easy to swap these parts in and out. If you have odd format sizes, as I do, you can set them on the scanner without the film guides, but they must be in the center where the mirror is. So I used post-it-notes on the glass to help locate the negatives. This works well and leaves no residue. Post-it notes also has a fully sticky tape that really works well for this.MORE USES THAN JUST PHOTOS, IF CONVENIENTOne thing I found by having this scanner so convenient, is that I have taken to scanning in recipes and articles (like yoga routines) that catch my eye in magazines and storing them on my computer. It allows you to ditch all the paper and keep only what you need. You need to be rigorous in naming and filing but it also makes this more handy as you don't have to dig through a bunch of magazines to find what you want. I had not anticipated this plus.COOL ASPECTI had stacks of old format negatives that had not seen the light of day in years. When I scanned them the scanner took these negatives and converted them to the positives that prints could be made from, or pictures that could be used in stuff like photo books. I found this utterly fascinating watching the pictures appear magically. I know that is not so stupendous, but I found it utterly cool. Also I had some albums that I just unbound the pages and put the whole page on the scanner. Using a pre-scan, I could locate the pictures I wanted to capture, and save separately. If the page is too big, first I did one half and then the other. This is great if you have fragile old albums that you don't want to risk removing the pictures from. For that matter if you can open the pages wide enough, you don't have to unbind the albums.The color restoration option also took some horrible looking prints from the 1960s to passable. That was merely checking a box when needed.SUMMARYThis was an entirely utilitarian purchase. I had tons of stuff that needed scanning and did not want to pay a fortune to do so. This scanner fit the bill nicely and has lead me to use it for a variety of other items. It went from utility to fun and that was cool.