Minolta DiMAGE Scan Dual III High Speed

Setup was a snap, nice plug-n-play USB 2.0 interface. Software was easy to use. I set it up to do batch scanning and no problems. The dust removal and color correction are really useful features.

But the real proof was in the prints that I made. I'd been shooting with a Canon D30 and making 8x10 and 11x14 prints for some time. But the prints from the Scan Dual III at even 11x14 were just incredible. I haven't tried larger prints, but I'm sure they will be great at least to 16x20.

Trust me you won't be disappointed with this scanner. My old slides and negatives have been brought back to life!


Great Scans. Easy to Use.   December 17, 2003
53 out of 53 found this review helpful

I've spent the last couple of months doing the same research you're probably doing right now. I was looking for a scanner that would produce good quality scans from 35mm slides. So far I am very pleased with the Minolta DiMage Scan Dual III. The scan quality has been excellent and it is easy to use.

Easy to set up. I had the scanner up and running 30 minutes after unpacking the box. New hardware set up in Windows Xp was flawless. It uses a USB connection. It works well with USB 1.1 but it was designed for USB 2.0. I didn't know that when I ordered it. So, I shelled out the $35 for a new USB 2.0 PCI card and installed it. It nearly cut the scanning time in half.

It comes with two film holders. One that holds four 35mm slides and another that holds one six-picture 35mm negative strip. The user inter-face is fairly intuitive. Even so, I have to admit that I read the instruction manual from cover-to-cover. I have about 500 slides to scan and wanted to make sure I understood everything this unit could do before I got too far into the project. It also comes with Adobe Photo Shop Elements 1.0 but is compatible with 2.0, which is what I prefer to use when I need to touch up a photo.

I read an earlier review of this unit where the reviewer complained that it didn't quite scan the entire image. I haven't had that problem. In fact, I not only get the entire image but usually have to crop a little bit off of the outer edges.

Scanning Resolution. The most difficulty I had was selecting a scanning resolution for my slides. I wanted a quality scan but with a reasonable file size. The instruction manual wasn't very helpful in this area. Depending on the settings, image size can range from just a few hundred kb to over 30mb, at maximum resolution. I spent a couple hours trying different resolution combinations. Ultimately, I chose the maximum resolution (4032 X 2688) using the jpeg format and low file compression. (Jpeg is the same format my digital camera uses.) At those setting I get files that range in size from 5.5mb to 7.0mb each, compared to a 31.0mb file at max. resolution in BMP format. I printed an 8 X10 from each of the two formats. Both were excellent quality and I can't tell one from the other. Granted a 5.5mb to 7.0mb is still a pretty big file. But you can choose medium or high compression, which reduce the file size considerably. I chose low compression, which gives me a larger file, as I plan to burn the scans on to CD and remove them from my hard drive.

I scan four slides in a little less than 8 minutes. (Double that if you have USB 1.1) I typically have it running in the background while I'm doing something else at my desk. I also have an HP PSC 2210 all-in-one photo printer, scanner, fax, copier. I have had absolutely no hardware or software conflicts between the two scanners. Both work flawlessly every time.

Amazon.com was great to deal with, as usual. They had the lowest price I could find on-line, for a brand new unit. I ordered it on a Saturday evening and chose the Super Saver shipping option (Free). They estimated 15 days shipping but it was delivered to my door in 5 days.

So far, this has been a great purchase. Scanning is easy and fun. And it produces good quality scans. I'll have my 500 slides scanned in a snap. (or two).


Great little scanner!   October 15, 2003
lfisher (Boston, MA USA)
35 out of 37 found this review helpful

I bought this scanner to scan over 200 old slides for my parents' 65th birthdays, and I was very pleased with the total package. The scanner itself is nice and small; the software package is sufficiently powerful. It was easy to set up, and we were busily scanning pictures within a few minutes of unpacking it. The quality of the scans is unbelievable, too. Of course, if the slides are truly damaged (mold, scratches, etc.), the software can't improve the picture too much, but for most slides the digital image is just stunning. The quality options are wide and impressive, too--I've been using the 1200x1600 setting, but you can go up to around 2820 dpi, which is much more than most people will need. I really like being able to scan all four slides at once (they are saved as separate files).

I only have two complaints. 1) The scanner doesn't scan 100% of the slide--no matter how you put the slide in the holder, it always crops one or two sides by a few centimeters. Bummer, but no big deal overall. 2) It'd be nice to be able to scan more than 4 slides. But again, for the money, it's not a major concern.

Otherwise, I've been very pleased with this scanner and would recommend it to anyone wishing to digitize old slides and/or film. Considering that you can pay up to $2 per slide to have it done professionally, this little unit is quite a savings if you plan on doing a lot of scanning.


Excellent Scanner for the Price!   November 13, 2003
Brian (VA, USA)
34 out of 35 found this review helpful

I have scanned over 2,000 negatives so far with this scanner. Initially I thought the quality was not all that good, but it turns out that the resolution of the scanner is better than that of the film and I was seeing the film grain at the higher resolutions. The enclosed software is pretty good for clearing up minor problems with the scans, but I prefer using other image processing software to clean up the pictures. I batched my scanning so everything was scanned at the same generic settings, however on a couple of pictures I really like I manually played with the settings in the enclosed software and was able to do a lot of color correction and cleanup. I have not tried slides yet, but I am confident they will scan just as well. If you want to archive your old slides or negatives, this is the way to go.

Installation was a breeze with my pentium 4 and windows XP pro.


Excellent scanner for most negatives; some tips   December 19, 2003
babla_jabla (Cary, NC USA)
30 out of 32 found this review helpful

I am using this canner to convert old 35 mm negatives to digital.
I have found that you have to be careful about making sure that the negatives are clean. If you are not, there will be weird dust/scratch marks all over because the scanner does not have ICE.
I have scanned a few hundred negatives with excellent results. I had problems with dust/scratches that I circumvented by following the following workflow:
- remove any dust from negatives by using an air can. Sometimes I clean them with a film cleaner such as PEC-10. I have heard that a anti-static brush helps too.
- Custom scan in a batch of four at 2820 dpi, 8x multi scan, auto crop, auto fix via only the histogram, to a large tiff file.
- I use the freely availble Polaroid Dust and Scratch tool on the tiff file to remove any dust/scratch (use this tool manually. That is mark the area that you see the dust on and ask the tool to find dust in that area only. Keep doing this till you find most dust. Don't ask the tool to find dust in the whole image. It'll find too much. Save the modified file in tiff again)
- Use the included PhotoShop Element(PSE) to enhance the picture and convert to jpeg. The only feature of PSE I am using is enahnce>brightness>levels. I just move the sliders till I get a good photo. I have found that I am able to improve the original pictures a lot by doing this simple 30 seconds thing.
- Scanning takes a long time (about 4-5 min per negative). But the results are outstanding, and it is quite an automatic process. All you do is keep loading the negatives, and process the tiff files as you get time.