Epson V500 Scanner

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Last week I took a trip to my local Salvation Army, it's usually a hit or
miss and I leave empty handed. So to my surprise when I went back to
the electronics department on the bottom shelf there was a nice Epson
V500 scanner for the sum of $24.99, It didn't have a power cord and
supply so I decided to get it and when the counter girl rang it up it was
the price of $12.50 and took my big investment home and ordered a power
cord and supply. Well the Power supply came today and I hooked it up and
downloaded all the things needed to scan and to my surprise it works, I
have to get used to the way it all works but so far I makes nice scanned
prints. I did have what I thought was a problem, I scanned a picture of
my uncle and when I printed it scan lines came out but when I look at
the original there they were printer printing lines from my Canon i9900
printer so it does pick this up. I just wanted to also now if anyone has
a Epson scanner and if you could give me any tips on using it.

Thanks
 
Congrats on a great find! I’ve been using an Epson V500 scanner for at least 7 years. I recommend getting some ANR glass inserts to press 35mm negs flat in the plastic holders. Also, play around with the slider used to control tones. The default settings don’t capture all the info on the negative but can be adjusted. Once you get the hang of it, this scanner does a more than decent job of scanning 35mm and 120 negs.
 
I have a v550 which is (as far as I know, anyway) almost identical to the v500, and I've been very pleased with it. Like Bingley [post #2] I use it for both 35mm and 120 neg scanning, and it easily does a good enough job for my purposes. Yes, drum scans are better, but you just don't get a drum scanner for the price of a v500! ;)

I don't really have any tips, other than doing what I did - which was to experiment until I found settings that suited my requirements. :)
 
Bingley said:
Congrats on a great find! I’ve been using an Epson V500 scanner for at least 7 years. I recommend getting some ANR glass inserts to press 35mm negs flat in the plastic holders. Also, play around with the slider used to control tones. The default settings don’t capture all the info on the negative but can be adjusted. Once you get the hang of it, this scanner does a more than decent job of scanning 35mm and 120 negs.
Click to expand...

Like this - ?
http://www.betterscanning.com/scanning/insert35.html
 
FWIW , I've had very good scans from my Epson V600 , by simply placing a
thin piece of glass over the negatives, perfectly flat and the scan detail is great , did I say cheap and effective ? Try it before you spend a penny on expensive holders , it only takes a few tries to get the negs located correctly . Try it !
Peter
 
Moto-Uno said:
FWIW , I've had very good scans from my Epson V600 , by simply placing a
thin piece of glass over the negatives, perfectly flat and the scan detail is great , did I say cheap and effective ? Try it before you spend a penny on expensive holders , it only takes a few tries to get the negs located correctly . Try it !
Peter
Click to expand...

I've been intrigued by the idea of putting negatives directly on the glass plate. I understand that the Epson V700 scanner series will allow you to do that. The V500 won't (or, at least, I've never figured out how to adjust the software to "read" negatives directly on the plate). The V500 comes with rather cheap plastic holders, but with the glass ANR inserts the scanning is fine.
 
One additional tip on the V500: after you get the preview of your images, click on "full size" for each previewed image and then look at the little histogram button over on the left (with the other scanner setting options). Click on it to open up the histogram for the particular image. I do two things for each image. First, I move the sliders under the histogram so that the left slide is set at 0 and the right slider is set at 255 (I don't know why the defaults are different). Then, I adjust the sliders on the histogram itself so that the right point is directly under or slightly to the right of the right edge of the histogram; the mid-point is set at 1:00 or as close to it as I can get; and the left point is set at or slightly to the left of the left edge of the histogram. This is where you can make some initial exposure adjustments to the image before actually scanning, but by setting the outer points directly under the left and right edges of the histogram, you're also capturing the maximum amount of information in the scan. You can then tweak the results in PS, LR, or whatever other image processing software you use.
 
I'm not familiar with the V500 , however with the V600 there's no mention anywhere concerning placing the negatives on the glass . There also seems to be much talk of correct distancing of the negatives away from the plate . My experience over the last few years ,is that is not substantiated by me. It only takes some careful positioning of the negative strip. If in the preview mode it shows nothing (default is thumbnail) , choose to close it and use "normal" and the scans then show . Hope this helps , Peter
 
Do nothing, just use Epson scan. Mine v500 works this way, with original film holders.
Just make sure you hold it. I mean, negatives in the book.
For few days. They will become flat.
 
i have v330-its a bit cheaper model than 500 but i think you guys can help me-i have a feeling that i get a bit softer detail-any advice how to get more out of negs?
 
nzeeman said:
i have v330-its a bit cheaper model than 500 but i think you guys can help me-i have a feeling that i get a bit softer detail-any advice how to get more out of negs?
Click to expand...

I had V330 before getting V500. The only reason it is cheaper - it has no MF support.

Scan at higher resolution and set it to resize, save to manageable file.
 
Nice find. I have a V500. I use the supplied film holders & so far am quite satisfied. I’m still learning so haven’t any info to share. I like that it scans 120 as well. My wife had some old negatives from her dads old camera she wanted me to scan. 620 maybe? They scanned ok. MOF this is one of my wife I scanned and posted in the gallery.

med_U7008I1450026014.SEQ.0.jpg
 
I’ve had a V500 for years and find it is quite easy to work with and gives results that are as nice as you’re likely to get with a flatbed. The supplied negative holders work okay but they’re not very easy to use. I eventually picked up a 120 holder from Betterscanning which was a big improvement. Later I got 120 and 35mm Digitaliza holders, which I also like a lot.

Bingley’s setting suggestions match what I do almost exacty and I have no complaints with the quality of the scans. If you’re in a hurry the default auto-exposure setting actually does a pretty decent job, too.

I experimented with Vue Scan for a while and it’s much more flexible and full-featured than the stock Epson Scan software but, in the end, I found I seldom need the added features and Vue Scan is a lot fussier to use* so I mostly just use Epson Scan.

All in all it’s been a very reliable machine.

*Don’t get me wrong; Vue Scan is excellent software. It just has a steeper learning curve than Epson Scan does.
 
Here's a question for you guys, I received the holders for 35mm slides and film and
decided to try it out and scan some slides, I didn't do a total scan just the first scan
and wow the Kodakchrome 64 are still breathtaking. Now if I wanted to print one to
say 8X10 I just follow the page that comes up and where to set?
 
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