Epson V500 Review

The Epson V500 is a great scanner for the ordinary home user. I bought it to scan in many older slides and negatives. I’ve already recuperated the value over what it would cost me to take it to a shop. It also can scan medium format negatives.

Easy of Use:
The scanner is very easy to set up and use. I’ve spent most of my time in Home Mode which gives you some basic options on what you are scanning, the resolution, brightness, color correction, ICE, etc. 4800 dpi is huge: it will create a file that is 4800 x 7200 pixels, which is over 34 MP. I scanned most of the scans at 1200 dpi, which produced about a 2MP file on 35mm negative.
When you are scanning 35mm negatives or slides, if you press “thumbnail” option, the scanner will detect and segment all the photos into different files after you run the preview scan. You also can rotate photos in the preview, so you don’t need to do any post processing. The segmentation and rotations only work for 35mm, not medium format.
In home mode, ICE, color correction, brightness, contrast, and backlight correction are all possible adjustments before you even scan, after you scan the preview. This is a good option to have, depending on your negative.

Scan times:
Scanning is very quick at 300 dpi, which is a screen quality size. Scan times do go up from there. Most scans at 1200 dpi seemed to take about 1-2 minutes. 4800 DPI takes about 5 minutes.

Digital ICE:
Adding “Digital ICE” option will remove dust from your negatives, but it will add significant scan time. A negative with too much damage will actually look worse with ICE. It also sometimes doesn't work well with older black and white negatives. A 1200 DPI scan of a 35mm negative with ICE takes about 10 minutes.

Kodachrome
Kodachrome has a reputation of scanning poorly, and the scanner’s performance on KR was important to me. The good news is that it works very well. While some say ICE doesn't work well with KR, I've successfully scan KR with ICE.

Extras:
The scanner came with Adobe Elements 6. I literally can’t tell the difference between Elements 6 and the current offering, Elements 7. Elements has all the tools a home user will need: color correction, brightness & contrast corrections, fixing spot marks.

The Downside:
As other people have mentioned, the negative trays are a little flimsy, but as long as you are careful, they’ll be okay.
If you are scanning medium format, there isn’t a thumbnail preview. You have to do it one at a time, and may have to rotate the photo after scanning.
Scan times, including the time switch out the negatives or slides, can be higher, but I think to increase scanning times, with autofeeders, you will be spending 5 times as much. Normally I am doing something else while scanning, so it’s
If you unplug the scanner from the computer after using it and you plug it back in, the computer may not recognize the scanner. If you restart your computer and scanner, it will fix the problem.