| Scanners Reviews : Slide and Photo |
 | Epson Perfection V300 Photo Color Scanner (Black)
EpsonV300 scanner met my expectation -- 2010-03-10
bought it to digitize my family photo albums. No problem to set up and hook up to my XP PC. Very easy to use. The scanning software allows to scan a few photos at one time, which greatly improved work efficiency. Also the software feature allows me to adjust the histogram and color before it scans in; saving my time to adjust afterward. The quality of scanned photo at least the same as the original by naked eyes. Have not tried to scan negatives yet.
Great quality to price ratio, bad lifespan. -- 2010-03-09
I bought this for Christmas last year & it died a mere 3 weeks into its service life. Something in the motor / sensor assembly wouldn't calibrate to zero when you power it on. It would just sit there with the LED lit up & stuck near the bottom of the device. Additional fidgeting with its buttons would cause all usb devices plugged in near the scanner to seize. I took it apart & the electronics are very simple & elegant inside. The part that failed does not seem to be replaceable or adjustable. There are very few parts inside.
Its a shame, because for the 3 weeks that it worked, it was my favorite scanner hardware. The LED was very high powered and well matched to the CCD, so the resulting images didn't require much tweaking in photoshop to make them 100% accurate.
The native resolution of the devices was VERY high compared to others in the price range. You don't need to interpolate the data coming in to get a large, printworthy size. Unscratched 35mm negatives often scanned better than dirty old prints, a testament to the adequacy & density of the device's ccd.
Epson seems to have the imaging formula down very well for doing LED scans with their first couple generations of LED based scanners. I'll give Epson another shot, but probably with next year's model instead of this one again.
|
 | Canon CanoScan 8800F Color Film/Negative/Photo Scanner (2168B002)
For the price it's terific -- 2010-03-03
Only had it a couple weeks but so far its terrific. Had alot of 35mm slides to scan. Did a great job. Scanned regular photos also and it seems to give the result I wanted.
Takes some time at high very resolution (2400 and up) for the slides but considering what I paid it is well worth the wait. It's very fast at a resolution of 300. Have not been able to start working on the scanned photos in photoshop which will give me much more info on the details of the scan.
The software is pretty good but nothing to write home about. Not as intuitive as it could be.
I would definitely recommend this scanner from what I have seen so far.
Maybe a good scanner, but wasn't what I wanted -- 2010-03-03
Well, I had wanted a scanner that scanned 8x11 negative films, and I thought I had found one, but it only scans a strip about 4 inches wide. It would have been easier if they would post a picture of the top scanning area. So the only one I can find that does this is 600 bux. Ugh.
|
 | Epson Perfection v600 Photo Color Scanner (B11B198011)
Epson v600 -- 2010-03-04
Nice scanner. Was easy to set up on Windows Vista. basically starts up right out of the box. Used it to scan 30-40 year old pictures. Fantastic results!
Very nice scanner but Epson needs to work on QC -- 2010-02-27
This is a great scanner - makes excellent high-resolution scans of photos; Digital ICE comes in handy with damaged prints; speed is good; software is easy to use and flexible enough for my needs; and it's reasonably priced. However, the thing that killed the deal for me and knocked off the fifth star was the presence of dust particles on the underside of the scanner glass. This was the case with two V600s I got from Amazon. This meant that every scan I made had little specks in those spots. You might expect some dust inside the machine after some wear and tear, but not right out of the box! Amazon was great and readily accepted the return of the first scanner, quickly sent out a second, and then recredited my account when I returned that one. I'll wait a while for Epson to deal with their quality control problems before ordering another.
|
 | Epson Perfection V500 Photo Scanner
V500Scanner -- 2010-03-05
Item was shipped when said, arrived in great shape, Easy to setup and output was fantastic. Used to scan slides and output was fantastic and so easy to use.
On film -- 2010-03-03
Before purchasing an Epson Perfection V500 Scanner I read only the one star (bad) reviews. As I needed a way to scan 120/220 films, I took the plunge and bought one anyway. Most of the negative reviews seemed to revolve around software issues, particularly the supplied Photoshop Elements program. I have had no problems in this area, although, I already had Photoshop Elements 2.0 in my PC and did not use the supplied program. I have Photoshop Elements 6 in my MacBook Pro, but have not tried using the Epson V500 with that computer and program, yet.
I do, however, have issues with what appears to be the V500's inability to manually crop while scanning films. I am scanning film sizes from ViewMaster chips to 6x9 and everything between. The scanner is very hit-or-miss when scanning the ViewMaster reels, even set to scan 6x9 films. It cuts my reels into segments sometimes through the middle of an image. If I isolated a single film chip, the scanner says it can't find it and won't scan.
The scanner also seems to lack any method for manual focusing, creating problems when laying ViewMaster-style reels directly on the glass and when scanning glass mounted slides. If the scanner is capable of manual cropping when scanning film, and/or can be manually focused, I have not found instructions on how to do these things. The Users Guide is disappointingly limited.
Also, scans fail when scanning at extremely high resolution setting, but I don't know if this is an issue with the scanner or my computer.
|
 | Pandigital SCN02 PhotoLink One Touch Scanner w/Memory Card
CAN'T GET REPLACEMENT SLEEVES -- 2010-03-03
In the user's guide, the requirement to use the sleeve to hold material to be scanned is represented as being vital. I have been copying some photos that I really want to scan in a sleeve because the backside of the print is pretty rough and I don't want to damage the scanner. The sleeve that came with the product had a little "wrinkle" in it which affects the scanned image. I've been trying since December to get a replacement sleeve.... even if I have to PAY for the sleeve... with no luck...
I've used Pandigital's on line communications page (recommended as the most efficient/quickest way to communicate) several times in December and January... no repsonse. Finally was able to get to Pandigital's customer service on their "800 number" mid January and was promised that a replacement sleeve would be sent... but I could not buy an extra sleeve... the replacement never arrived.
In the end of February again via Pandigital's contact website I asked for a replacemnt sleeve. They answered (actually the first time they ever answered a contact page communication) and told me that they were "out of sleeves" and that I just needed to keep calling "800 number".... no indication of when they might have another order of sleeves.
Without replacement consumables (such as photo sleeves, replacement cleaner parts, etc.) the product is obsolete as soon as the consumable is "used up."
VERY dissappointing...
Quality of scanned photos is sub-par -- 2010-02-18
I really wanted this little scanner to work, but the fact is it does not have very good photo output in color, clarity, or resolution. I tested it against a $90 canon multifuction (MX860) with the same output settings of 300dpi. Granted the Canon is not as easy to scan photos, but I was more concerned about comparing quality of the scan. The results with the Pandigital were disappointing: fuzzy detail, oversaturated colors and poor resolution. I wasn't expecting miracles from this device, but the result was not worth the effort of scanning thousands of 4x6 photos from the past. The other major issue, which is a pain and also degrades the final product, is you are required to put the photo you are scanning into a plastic sleeve with a bar code on the end that tells the scanner it is a photo being scanned. This slows the roller down so it can increase the detail of the scan. The problem I had with the sleeve is a fine white lines on every photo scanned. Overall, it's a great idea with poor execution. If they can fix the resolution issues, it would be a great little gadget.
|
 | Ion 35mm Photo Negative and Slide Converter to PC (SLIDES2PC)
Not bad, but not the best -- 2010-03-07
I am very pleased with the vender. The product itself was simple and effective. The main concern was its tendency to over expose some slides and a few negatives. It would start out with dark and then look pretty good, but often would keep lightening to a point where any light subject was a bright blur. I found that I could sometimes click immediately to save the image when it was too dark and get the image I liked. Since the click to save is delayed, it must be clicked when it is still too dark in order to capture the phase in the middle before it is too light. If one would click when it is ideal, it will wait until the next, too light, phase before it is saved.
In other words, it is not professional results at its best, but still very good to save slides and negatives to digital in an acceptable resemblance to the original pictures. It just takes some learned skill at catching the prefered results.
I am pleased I have this converter considering the price.
dpevjen -- 2010-03-07
Great product. Have used it for hundreds of slides and negatives and the results are incredible. One hangup is that the software needs to be improved. It's slow and, every once in a while, you need to reboot the computer.
|
 | TIC Wolverine 35mm Film to Digital Image Converter with 2.4-Inch LCD and TV-Out
I highly recommend -- 2010-03-11
I received this and 15 hours later, had scanned in 1600 photos. The cheapest photographic negative to digital transfer service on the internet charges .29 cents a piece, so doing it yourself will save a lot of money. I saved $500 doing it this way. They turned out great. Here's what I would recommend--
Buy a can of air, the compressed air in a can for cleaning keyboards will work well to keep the negative tray dust free, you don't want to scan that in and have to remove in photoshop later...
You need an sd card with this to scan away-independent of a computer, which is what I recommend for this long slightly tedious but well-worth-it task. If you do not have a sd card, buy the smallest cheapest one. I bought a larger sd card but the scans only turn out to be 1 megabyte a piece so I could have easy just spent $4 to get the 2 GB card.
Lastly, if you are prepared and have all of your negatives ready to go and a little table work area cleared you can easily scan all your photos and then get the scanner on ebay in a weekend, then the cost of transferring your old photos to digital drops to just pennies.
Happy scanning...
wolverine image converter -- 2010-03-07
Item received promptly.
It is easy to use and functionaly very effective. Quality of reproductions is excellent. Requires making sure slides, negatives and image plate are dust free, use air cannister frequently.
|
 | Epson Perfection 4490 Photo Scanner
upgraded from epson 4180 to 4990 -- 2010-02-26
We have had an Epson scanner since 2006, recently it just didn't perform like it should, so we bought the equivalent Epson 4990. The scanner is great, but the software that came with it is much to be desired.
It has Presto bizcard which we cannot use on ANY of our computers. We have a Windows 7 PC and 3 Mac's(bizcard only works with windows, only not 7). Also it came with Adobe Photoshop Elements 2, which there is a current version 8.
This is truly an insult. Just beware if you just want to use the scanner it's a great tool, otherwise the software is antiquated.
Perfection realized-4490 Photo -- 2010-02-25
It took less then 10 minutes to get set up with Windows Vista and test this out. My number one reason for buying was for the 35 MM slide archive I have and want to convert my favorites to digital images. I had heard stories about scanners trying to capture the 35MM slide image and my dad who is a photo buff had an HP sometime back and got so dissatisfied he went to an outfit to get slides converted for more then I paid for the EPSON. The result, it blew away all expectations. I was able to digitize easily at 8Meg and pop it onto my plasma 50" screen with amazing results of the Virgin Islands taken 25 years ago. (I actually had to throttle back from 1200 DPI because it produced an 18Meg file.) Colors were rich and detail was crisp. I haven't had a chance to test it with old photos yet but for converting the slides it was worth every dime and more.
|
 | Epson Perfection V700 Photo Color Scanner
Great Quality Scans, Some Concerns -- 2010-03-07
I have had this scanner now for over a year and it has served me very well. I have completed a few thousand scans so far, the unit was purchased to scan my own slides and negatives and I'm now scanning my Dad's slides and negatives. It does an excellent job quality wise and to me the Digital Ice has been a huge benefit. I initially tried blowing off each side or negative with canned air but there is no way to get every dust grain and the program does it better and does not seem to affect quality. It does, however, hugely extend the scan time.
I did initial testing and for me scanning slides / negatives at 2400 DPI resulted in good quality for what I want to do (small prints and mainly display of photos via networked MacMini on large screen TV).
My concerns are with the software. As others have noted, it is clunky but gets the job done (mostly). I have had problems with it not identifying orientation of slides or abnormally clipping slides / negs especially with dark backgrounds. For example, a large number of pictures I have taken of my house in the dark with Christmas lights are clipped wrong. Luckily, I usually take several to bracket the exposure and at least one usually scans correctly. There should be a way to override the scanner's preview scan area.
My other concern with it was that a few months back it stopped working. No blue light on the top, no nothing. I was certain it was a hardware failure and contacted Epson (who actually seemed very responsive) and was given a place to send it for repair. I was using the scanner on an iMac at the time of the failure and on impulse before sending it back I hooked it up to my MacBook Pro which I had used for some initial testing with it so the software was installed already. Oddly, it made some funny noises and then worked. I hooked it back up to the iMac and it has been scanning along fine since. IF YOU USE THIS SCANNER WITH A MAC I RECOMMEND YOU NOT HAVE ANY OTHER ACTIVITY OVER FIREWIRE DURING SCANNING, as near as I can tell that was the source of the problem - when it failed I was in the background copying files from one disk to another. I hope this helps someone.
Fits the bill -- 2010-02-10
I bought this scanner to digatize old photos and slides. I think it does a great job. It's pretty putzie to go through all the steps to get the scans if you want high quality. Batch scan, frame, zoom to get frame exactly right, adjust color/exposure/contrast/repair/etc. and then final scan. The frames for slides works well and you can do 12 at a time. High quality scanner that fits the bill for me.
|
 | 3-in-1 Digital Photo / Negative Films / Slides Scanner with built-in 2.4" LCD Screen
bad quality -- 2010-03-07
There is something wrong with the lens on these contraptions. The center of the picture is in focus while all around the center it is out of focus. I bought this product because of the good reviews. The people who gave this product a excellent review should have their eyes checked. If your planning on scanning for quality don't buy this product.
Avoid SVP!! -- 2010-03-03
I purchased a SVP-FS1700 negative and slide scanner for a Christmas present via Amazon.com. The item was defective( it squashed the picture horizontally)and had to be returned. I tried to telephone SVP and and could only leave a message. I received no response. I then tried to email SVP. Again no response. I filed an A to Z claim with Amazon. And after 1 1/2 months of back and forth( and having to spend $13.00 to ship the item back because it has to be insured and a signature for delivery is required) I was told I would receive my refund MINUS A $15.00 RESTOCKING FEE! A restocking fee for a defective item? That's $28.00 I'm in the hole for a defective item. Do yourself a favor and avoid SVP at all cost. The money you might save is not worth all the trouble.
|
|
|
|
|