Epson Perfection V500 Photo Scanner

I used this scanner to create images from 40 year old 35 mm slides for posting on the Internet. I am extremely pleased with the results. Being able to scan four slides at a time was a real time-saver. Documentation is a bit skimpy and I was scratching my head at times while trying to get my first results, but after an hour or so it all made sense. If you want to salvage a life time's worth of slides or photos before they deteriorate, the V500 will do it for you and at a reasonable cost.

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.

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

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.

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.