Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 6-10 of 94
 Way to slow and it stalls October 3, 2007
BaddogLtd (JesusLand, USA)
26 out of 29 found this review helpful
I wish I had read the review by Steve Kass below instead of spending 3 days on the phone with tech support. Scanning a 2 1/4 negative to 11x11 file went from 3 minutes with my old Epson 1650 to almost 12 minutes with the V500. It stalled at the 2 minute mark while the scanner stopped responding for 4 minutes before picking back up. The scan looked good but when you multiply that time by a sheet of negatives it's unrealistic. Returning the V500 and hooking the 1650 back up until I find something better.
 ATTENTION PHOTOSHOP USERS! TWAIN MALFUNCTION December 8, 2007
C. Assaf (NY, USA)
16 out of 24 found this review helpful
I bought this scanner for a business trip, when I knew I would absolutely need to scan images, and couldn't bring my all-in-one Epson printer with me.
The set-up was really easy, but THEN...
I have a Mac Powerbook G 4. I usually scan directly into photoshop, using the twain import function. I tried to do the same with this scanner, and lo and behold... Photoshop would not recognize the scanner for some time, until it crashed entirely: not only could I not scan the images I needed to work on urgently, but I could not even open photoshop anymore. It crashed, everytime I tried to open it, while opening twain...
I called customer service as soon as I realized that photoshop wasn't recognizing the scanner. It was the beiginning of a 6 hours adventure on the phone with various customer services at Epson and Photoshop. Epson kept putting me on hold.... for 30 to 60 min. at a time, passing me on to various useless cutomer service representatives, to whom I had to repeat the same information over and over again, until I finally got to the "specialist" (the same one each time). It was when I was on the phone with him the first time that Photoshop crashed entirely. When it happened and I communicated that to him, the line miraculously broke off! I had to call again, put on hold again, passed through all the loops again, got that same specialist, gave my "case number" again, started menionning the photoshop problem and.... THE LINE CUT OFF AGAIN!!
This happened three times in total.
They finally said "the scanner is working, it is a problem with photoshop... call them"
The worst part of it is: the scanner comes with a cd of photoshop elements 3.0... I would think that since they send the photoshop cd along with the scanner, the two are compatible! I installed the photoshop elements hoping that I could at least use that during my stay out of town... same problem. When I called photoshop to try to understand what the problem was, they asked me to register the Photoshop Elements 3.0... I gave the serial number, and they refused to help me out because the product had already been registered... BY EPSON!!
Did I hear someone mention Kafka?
SOLUTION: if this problem happened to you, I finally found a semi-resolution on the internet, in five minutes (after my lost day on the phone): you have to disable twain from your Photoshop Applications folder:
Mac HD> Applications > Adobe Photoshop > Plug-ins > Import/Export > Twain
Just rename the Twain by adding a ~ infront of it (call it ~twain) and it disables it... you won't be able to import anything via phhotoshop, but at least your photoshop will be working again!
Apart from that, the scanner works fine.
Moral of the story: back from my business trip, I found my Epson all-in-one printer having died during my trip (an interesting coincidence). I bought an HP in replacement and will return the scanner as well. I am done with Epson forever.
 Great resolution, software needs work February 8, 2008
Boo Boo Bear
16 out of 17 found this review helpful
I've been using the scanner to scan negatives and slides. I think this scanner works quite well, however there are several software pitfalls waiting for the advanced user who wants total scanner control. First if you use "At Home Mode" the scanner automatically applies the unsharp mask even though there is no indication it is doing so. Not all unsharp masks are equal and if you zoom to pixels level you can see that this one is a bit heavy handed. It is much better to capture the raw scan data and then apply the unsharp mask (to your liking) in Photoshop. The second pitfall is the apparent inability of the program to maintain your settings in "Professional Mode". For example in professional mode there is a check box for Unsharp Mask. Uncheck Unsharp Mask and then do a preview scan. The check on Unsharp Mask reappears as if the machine is unhappy with your selection. If you recall saved settings it demands that you redo the preview scan and your back to square one. Hopefully there is fix in the works. Anyway if you are a casual user you probably won't notice the flaws.
 Epson V500 - working well for negatives December 13, 2007
i heart photography
15 out of 15 found this review helpful
When I read the poor reviews here on Amazon, I was hesitant to purchase this scanner. I have had the scanner for 2 days now and I have done about 15 scans -- all of which have been medium format negative film (color and b/w). I am importing directly into Photoshop CS, scanning 6"x6" at 300 dpi.
So far, I have been happy w/the speed of the scans and scan quality, especially considering the price of the scanner. 6x6 at 300 dpi w/no ICE takes about 1 to 1.5 min to scan. If I turn on the ICE feature, it seems like the scans take about 2.5-3.5 min. My first attempt w/ICE came out poorly b/c I was scanning a black and white negative, I later found out that ICE does not work for black and white negs on the Epson site. I tried ICE again today with color negatives and it worked well -- no banding, mystery marks, etc.
Only complaint so far - as noted by another reviewer - is that the negative carriers are flimsy and feel very cheap.
From my experience, I give the V500 a thumbs up.
Great for B/W December 11, 2007
A. Downs (USA)
14 out of 15 found this review helpful
I just got this scanner as an early Christmas present and I couldn't be happier. I'm running OS X on an intel Mac and had no trouble installing the drivers or using it with Photoshop. With black and white negatives, scanning has been a snap in Home Mode. Color negatives have been a bit more difficult. I've had to switch to Professional Mode and then do a bit of altering in Photoshop to get the colors to really pop. I haven't tried slide film or scanning photos/documents yet.
My only complaint is with the negative holders. They seem a bit too flimsy... and like they could break at any moment. Also, the Medium Format holder isn't nearly long enough. I can only scan two images at a time. Three would be better.
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