Product Reviews

Epson's Perfection V500 Photo is a flatbed scanner designed to capture high-quality images from film negatives as well as more traditional image sources such as photos and documents. It's less expensive than most dedicated film scanners, and more versatile, though its maximum optical resolution of 6,400dpi can be used only when scanning transparencies. The highest resolution at which it can scan normal documents is 3,200dpi, but this should be fine for most artistic or archival projects.

We were impressed by the sharp, focused images produced by the scanner's optics. However, photo scans produced at default settings were a bit dark. Fortunately, the scanner driver's Professional mode includes a range of image adjustment options, which allow you to tweak colour balance, brightness and contrast, as well as more arcane tools such as tone correction curves and histogram adjustment. Slight colour problems were easy to correct, although our adjustments sometimes reset themselves when we tried to perform a second preview scan. The driver also has simplified Home and Full Auto modes, but the advanced options are

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so easy to use you probably won't feel the need for these stripped-down alternatives.

It was easy to scan film negatives. The scanner comes with a plastic frame into which you can clip sections of film and then lay on the scanner's glass. This has space for up to 12 35mm or four 120mm medium-format transparencies at once. The white document mat inside the lid must be removed to reveal a second light source, which shines light through the film so it can be captured accurately.

Select which type of film you are scanning from a menu and then preview the scan. The preview displays each frame as a separate thumbnail, allowing you to choose which you want to scan. Each selected frame is then scanned as a separate image. At 2,400dpi, a single frame took just under a minute to scan, although maximum resolution 6,400dpi scans took longer at three minutes and 26 seconds. At maximum resolution, negative scans had a great deal of detail and colour, although we found that sharp lines in transparencies scanned at 6,400dpi looked fuzzy at magnifications above 100 per cent.

The Perfection V500 Photo isn't cheap and it's not worth the extra money if you usually scan only photos and documents. There are a lot of options available to tweak your scans, but while our pictures were sharp the default colour balance settings didn't always produce the best-looking images, which is frustrating if you want optimal results quickly. However, transparency scans were excellent, making this an ideal choice if you have a lot of old negatives to archive or if you're a keen photographer who hasn't switched to digital. For most people, though, the Epson Perfection V100 Photo is a more affordable alternative.