Epson Perfection V500 Photo Flatbed Scanner

Fast and Accurate

Strengths: Easy setup software with additional bonus software that really works,

Weakness: Minor item; slide scanner only handles 4 slides at a time.

This is a fast and sleek unit using LED's instead of a lamp as the light source. As such there is no warm up time.
Initial scans of photos and text are sharp, crisp and color accurate.

The scanning software offers three modes; Auto, Home and Profession. Each is easy to use and understand. The Pro mode offers many color and sharpness adjustments that will satisfy high performance needs,

By SEinson - Dec 5, 2007

Epson Perfection V500 Photo Flatbed Scanner

Strengths: Fast start-up, lots of features, good software bundle, reasonable price.

Weakness: None noted so far.

I had been using one of the first USB scanners for about nine years. I was looking for something faster, but waiting for something that was also significantly better in other ways. Nothing I had seen up until now satisfied that requirement at a reasonable price. This model seems to have everything I was looking for. 1. It uses white LEDs instead of a fluorescent tube as the light source. The...
Read Full Review

I had been using one of the first USB scanners for about nine years. I was looking for something faster, but waiting for something that was also significantly better in other ways. Nothing I had seen up until now satisfied that requirement at a reasonable price. This model seems to have everything I was looking for.

1. It uses white LEDs instead of a fluorescent tube as the light source. The result: zero warm-up delay. This is a HUGE improvement in usability. No more staring at that annoying "Scanner lamp warming up" message!

2. It comes with holders for both slides and negatives as standard equipment at a reasonable price. Several different negative sizes are accommodated.

3. It comes with a fully featured software suite including an OCR program and Adobe Photoshop Elements for both PC and MAC.

By johnb3030 - Jan 6, 2008

What a GREAT scanner!

Strengths: Easy to install and operate. Fast. Quiet. 3 different modes to choose from. Digital ICE. Price.

Weakness: None

I just purchased this scanner - primarily to scan my 1000+ slides. At first, I was a bit reluctant because this model is brand new to the market and I was concerned about those inital bugs. But I know that Epson makes a good product so I took the chance. And am I glad that I did. It has some outstanding features: 1. Very simple to set-up and then operate. I scanned my first photo within 30...
Read Full Review

I just purchased this scanner - primarily to scan my 1000+ slides. At first, I was a bit reluctant because this model is brand new to the market and I was concerned about those inital bugs. But I know that Epson makes a good product so I took the chance. And am I glad that I did. It has some outstanding features:
1. Very simple to set-up and then operate. I scanned my first photo within 30 minutes of unwrapping the package. No problems with the software and the on-line User's Manual is really easy to follow.
2. Very fast scanning. The scan (including preview) of photos is unbelievably fast. But I was really surprised at the speed of scanning slides. A normal scan (without using Digital ICE correction) of 4 slides took less than 5 minutes. Compared to some of the other products, I've been reading about this is lightning speed.
3. Very quiet. When scanning photos, you can barely hear it. A little more noise when scanning slides, but certainly not bothersome.
4. Offers 3 modes to choose from - Auto, Home, and Professional. The Auto is the easiest and results in a very good photo. The Home and Professional offer a number of correcting features (more with the Professional mode). I am an intermediate Photoshop user and the Professional mode was as close to using an editing software as I've ever seen. The scan time slows down a bit when you use these correcting tools, but again - no big deal). Once I get the hang of it, I'm sure it will speed up the amount of time I will need with Photoshop.
5. Digital ICE is fantastic! This feature is used when only scanning film or slides. I first scanned slides without using it. The waulity was very good, but my slides are almost 30 years old so there was enough noise (mostly dust)and fade in them to be noticeable (something I was resigned to fix in Photoshop). I then scanned them using ICE and was amazed! The noise was completely gone and the colors were remarkably restored. The Photoshop work is going to be a piece of cake.
6. The price is unbelievable for what you get. I've seen scanners costing much, much more that aren't nearly as good as this one.
In summary, Epson has come up with a real winner. I really can't find anything negative to say. If you're looking for a quality scanner at a great price, look no further. This is the one!

By crazycat22 - Sep 15, 2007

Epson Perfection V500 Phot Flatbed Scanner

Strengths: Ability to enlarge scanned items Ease of Setup Software works flawlessly even in Vista 64 Photo and Film scanning Detachable scanner lid for large objects

Weakness: Short USB cord (but it has a USB cord) No printed manual

Just received the scanner and it was set up running perfectly in 30 minutes which included reorganizing the computer room. I replaced an HP PSC950 all in one with the Epson, The Epson scans faster and with more flexibility then the HP. I scanned Photos into Adobe Photoshop CS3 via import and as copied JPG files. Quality was good. Scanning documents with the Epson software into PDF documents was...
Read Full Review

Just received the scanner and it was set up running perfectly in 30 minutes which included reorganizing the computer room. I replaced an HP PSC950 all in one with the Epson, The Epson scans faster and with more flexibility then the HP. I scanned Photos into Adobe Photoshop CS3 via import and as copied JPG files. Quality was good.

Scanning documents with the Epson software into PDF documents was also quick and easy. Using Acrobat 8.0 I did have a quality problem in my first document scan. It was very grainey. Turned out I was getting JPGs because of how I selected the scanner in the software. Once I selected the correct scanner everyting was perfect.

One more strength is the enlarging ability of the Epson scanner. I needed to copy proof of purchase bar codes. I enlarged the proof of purchase so that a human can read it.

By KenVargo - Dec 7, 2007

Epson V500 Scanner

Strengths: High-quality scans, ease of use

Weakness: No printed manual. On-line manual only.

Set up was very easy. Install software and connect power and USB cord (included). Software included: Epson Scan with Easy Photo Fix, ABBY FineReader OCR, Epson Creativity Suite, User Guide, Adobe Photoshop Elements 4 (Windows), Adobe Photoshop Elements 3 (Macintosh). Plastic holders for film or slides are included. The scanner does an excellent job on photo prints. The images are very crisp and...
Read Full Review

Set up was very easy. Install software and connect power and USB cord (included). Software included:
Epson Scan with Easy Photo Fix, ABBY FineReader OCR, Epson Creativity Suite, User Guide, Adobe Photoshop Elements 4 (Windows), Adobe Photoshop Elements 3 (Macintosh). Plastic holders for film or slides are included. The scanner does an excellent job on photo prints. The images are very crisp and clear. The OCR software does an excellent job on documents. The front panel includes one-touch buttons for scanning to a PDF-format image file, copying (sending a scan to your printer), e-mail (creating an e-mail message with the scan attached as a document), and calling up the Epson Twain driver to scan and save a file to disk. Default mode handles all of the settings for you. Home mode lets you control a few settings and Professional mode allows you to control all settings including color balance, saturation and more.

By djetton - Dec 27, 2007