Konica Minolta DiMAGE Scan Dual IV Film Scanner

Pixel Polish restores film images that have faded over time as well as those that suffer from light-distortion (under-exposure, backlighting, and so on). Auto Dust Brush automatically cleans any dust or lint that may have been scanned with your film. It can also be used manually as a separate plug-in with certain Photoshop versions to give you more precise control of removal parameters and to let you preview results. Grain Dissolver removes excess grain that may be visible when scanning high-speed film or that may appear in images scanned at very high resolutions.

The DiMAGE Scan Dual IV offers fast USB 2.0 connectivity for both PC and Mac users. It can perform batch scanning (up to six filmstrip frames or four mounted slides) or multi-sampling (2x, 4x, 8x, 16x), and lets you control a large number of factors such as tone curve, histogram, sharpness, brightness, exposure, and color balance. The system comes with Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0.

What's in the Box
Minolta DiMAGE Scan Dual IV, 35mm film holder FH-U2, slide mount holder SH-U1, USB cable UC-2 (USB 2.0 compatible), AC adapter AC-U25, CD-ROM for DiMAGE Scan Dual IV, Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0

Product Description
Minolta 2891-301 Dimage Scan Dual Film Scanner -

But all that said, once you get it right it's a very good scanner. I've used others and this is by far the best. I'm suprised to hear the one reviewer complain about the sharpness of the shots - my scanner does an excellent job. I've scanned in over 500 slides so far (archiving the parent's slide collection from the 60s) and they look great.

The dust remover feature works reasonably well, although I've turned off all the pixel polish and image adjustment stuff - it doesn't make that big of a difference on my shots and makes the resulting images bigger.

The batch scan is great - I just sit here and work on other stuff and feed in 4 slides at a time. I've tried both color slides and negative film, both look excellent.

For those still frustrated by the startup sequence - here's what I do and it works every time.

1. Turn on your computer, let it boot.
2. Once up, turn on the scanner with the door closed.
3. Fire up the scanning software you want to use (batch scan, easy scan etc...).
4. once it barks at you to put the film in properly, then open the door and feed in your tray.

After that, you're good to go. I find if you deviate from the process you can come to grief. Once up, I've never had it fail and I've crammed through 150 slides at a sitting without a hitch.


Superb scanner at great price!   February 12, 2004
193 out of 196 found this review helpful

I shopped for a film/slide scanner at a reasonable price, comparing online and magazine reviews of several available. On balance, this scanner had the best features, specs, price and good performance history (prior versions II and III). I am advanced amateur photo enthusiast needing to convert slides to digital images. I have an Epson 3170 flatbed, which is great for old print photos but doesn't produce good images on slides despite some hyping in a couple of reviews that it does. The Minolta Dual Scan IV looks professional, feels substantial, is easy to set up, its software is easy to follow (more advanced components require spending some time learning the subtleties), and the slide and film holders are well made and engage in the travel mechanism very well. Images produced are outstanding - easily allowing you make 8.5 x 11 high quality prints (I use a Canon i960 printer). I am very impressed and totally satisfied. Some improvements were made in model IV, that take care of a few criticisms made about model III. USB 2 connect makes data transfer fast. This is great performance and value for the money.


Superb precision instrument - but NOT a Plug & Play device   July 8, 2004
Rudy (Columbia, SC USA)
36 out of 36 found this review helpful

After studying professional reviews (including CR), I decided on the Dual4. Forewarned by other users' comments about troublesome startup, I followed the manual's detailed installation instructions step-by-step. No problem whatever! Realize well that this is NOT a Plug-and-Play unit you just plug into a USB2 slot; if you do, Windows will use its own lame-duck generic WIA scanner driver, and gone are all the wonderful enhancements that Minolta's marvelously sophisticated scanning software offers. THE big secret is patience; precisely follow the instructions (same goes for my HP flatbed scanner) -- install the software from the CD first, and *only then* connect the USB cable when you are instructed to do so. If you don't: well just read what dissatisfied reviewers have to say. Also, when the manual tells you to initialize the scanner "with the door closed", it doesn't explicitly tell you to remove the film holder [it's the only way you can close the scanner door, after all]. Although better written and organized than an Asian DVD-player manual, there are some dense spots that you will need to explore on your own. Still, you can't unlock all the treasures of the software until you read (painstakingly, I might add) the software capabilities. I've only had the scanner for a few weeks but, once I learned how just a hair on the negative will magnify to a tree trunk on the print, it does an astonishing job of converting analog film slides to digital images that you can enhance in the accompanying complete PhotoShop Elements 2 software. A magnificent tool indeed but, like any precision tool, it needs careful adherence to instructions and some experimentation to realize its full potential. An unbeatable harware product, with software fine-tuned to provide the ultimate in quality images. Even so, lack of online tech support, such as simple driver updates, is disconcerting. Ask Amazon for tech support? You must be kidding!


IMPRESSED   July 3, 2004
michael (MARS)
34 out of 35 found this review helpful

I am totally impresed with this scanner. I was scanning 35mm film with an Epson 2450. What a difference! More latitude in the tonal range. Very sharp, Scanner has auto and manual focus. Professional driver software. Images consistant in color from scan to scan.
Have not used the dust remove feature yet. So far all my negs and trans are flawless. Even thou it is only 3200 dpi, if you know photoshop, the quality of the scans are so good I have no problems enlarging to 36x24 poster. I did a test and enalrged in the computer to 100 inches and just checking it out on the monitor it still held together NO PROBLEMS!
Have had the scanner for about a month and use it everyday and have had no start up problems or any other sort of problems, yet. But then again I use a MAC. Read the instruction manual before you do anything!
Anyway, well worth the $270 I spent !


Got Kodachrome????   October 29, 2004
digital barista (washington)
33 out of 34 found this review helpful

I haven't really had this long enough to know it well. I am in the middle of a freezing problem. However, what I haven't seen addressed in the reviews is what is a deal breaker for me.
I have Kodachrome slides from the 1950-1960 era. I returned my first scanner thinking it was dirty on the inside. The scans of the slides have what appears to be scratches and dirt spots. Too numerous to fix. None of the filters fix these problems. (By the way, my old Epson Photo Perfection 1650 scanned them clean -although it certainly had its own unbearable issues)
I received the new one and same problem. This time I called MInolta again and asked if there was a problem with Kodachrome and she checked and told me yes. That the scanner technology is not compatable with Kodachrome. She also did admit that the scans woould not be correctable as the scan contain so much noise. Ektachrome, according to her, and any new slide film, should be okay. I will be testing. First quick impression from 4 slides seems that may be true.
So if you are using this to archive slides from Kodachrome, look elsewhere! And perhaps check with Tech support before purchasing. When I initially talked to tech supposrt about the first scanner they did not seem to be knowledgeable. They could have asked what film I was using and avoided a return of a perfectly fine scanner.
(P.S. -no phone number is given in the manual for tech support, but I did get it from amazon)
An update. I will be sending this unit back. The Ektachrome slides sometime show noise, and the negatives show way too many scratches and orange blobs. Colors are vivd on negatives, (not slides). But I have thousands of negatives to go through and all the pixel polish, dust feature and grain dissolver do not fix the problem. Too bad, it was affordable. I had better results with my flatbed (other than the flourescent green line about a pixel in with running throught the picture. I will save for a Nikon.