With the rise in popularity of multi-function printer / scanner / fax machines in recent years could be a standalone desktop scanners seem to be an endangered species, especially around the office. Make no mistake. The standalone scanner is still alive and well and with good reason - MFP's have their place, but they have their drawbacks. Firstly, an MFP a large and bulky equipment tends to confiscate a lot of space on your desk. Also need if you or your staff to run print jobs and scan jobs at the same time, an MFP is quickly becoming a bottleneck, because they can not do both simultaneously. If either the printer or scanner components of an MFP require downtime for repairs, you have both devices. On top of all that built into the scanner MFP's do not offer the same quality and function as a standalone scanner, such as film set negative scanning.
Enter the Epson Perfection V500 ($ 349.99), which offers an inexpensive office scanner and then some of the objectives from a range of scanning features an automatic document feeder 2400-dpi color negative scans. Epson has tried the old V500 on both the document comfortably serious office environment and the restoration and touch-up photos home environment.
The V500 Office Unwrapped
The sleek black V500 office is located in a footprint less than 11x19 cm (slightly larger lid with automatic document feeder in place). With close to 5 cm (8 inches with ADF) scanner is not the smallest unit on the market, but is still reasonably slim.
Two separate covers are included with the V500 Office. The TPU (transparency unit) cover is when scanning 35mm film negatives or slides. The "ADF" lid takes a stack of up to 30 sheets of paper up to 8.5 x 14 inches for batch scans. Either with a lid, you can create documents directly on the flatbed glass, how to scan the pages, placing photos, and books.
FileMaker Task 2.0
The Epson Perfection V500 Color Scanner Office using the supplied 30-page ADF lid.
Both covers are floating hinges so that they can rest flat on heavy or bulky items such as a book. That is, the hinge not only offers a few inches of travel - for very large objects, you can simply position the cover at right angles, making it out of his way.
On the back of the scanner has a power port, a USB 2.0 "B"-style connector, and a round multi-pin connector for the lid. Each cover has to be connected a short cable that must be in the socket - the cable into the ADF cover is in everything connected quite short and slightly more difficult.
The front of the scanner features a number of quick-access buttons: PDF, e-mail, copying and scanning. The exact behavior of each of these keys, as the applications that can run it to be configured using the supplied Epson Event Manager.
Finally, there is a rocker-style power switch on the right side of the scanner. Note that this scanner does not contain a network socket - you must use the USB port directly to a host computer. Although it may be possible to release the scanner over a network, you need the operating system or third-use functions on the host computer to do so.
Software for Macs and Windows (Windows 7, Too)
Epson includes a CD with drivers and software for Windows (2000 and later, including Windows 7) and Mac OS X Epson's own "Epson Scan" software is the heart of this suite that allows you to preview, configure and run each scan.
Epson Scan itself offers four modes, each with a slightly different interface: Full Auto, home, office and professional. Each mode presents increasing amounts of features and options, although there may be a little confusing, between modes to find the easiest way to set a specific scan button.
Depending on which mode you are in, you can scan some interesting improvements in image quality for your. "Text Enhancement" will darken the text in a document so that it can be easier to analyze, through OCR (Optical Character) Recognition software. The Auto Area Segmentation "mode will attempt to automatically between text and image different areas of a document to scan the text in black and white (also for optimal OCR performance) and the images in greyscale () for quality.
You can also click "Exit" either red, green or blue - for example, if you scan a text document with a background color that you want to remove. Additional modifiers include image sharpening, de-screening, brightness and contrast.
For photos, you can "dust" and / or Epson "Digital ICE" filter. Digital ICE is a technology), infrared (for film or remove multiple lamps (for printing) to detect and dust, scratches and other so-called "surface defect" is used.
Also included with the V500's Office ABBYY FineReader, a basic OCR application and Adobe Photoshop Elements, a stripped down, but still very powerful version of Photoshop.
Let There Be Light - LED Inside
The V500 is an office of the newer scanners use an LED lamp, instead of the previous CCFL. This new mercury-free light source used to age about 10-20 percent less energy than older scanners and do not experience color shift while.
Best of all, LED lamps light instantly and require no warm-up time, so that the scanner start scanning with minimal delay, even from a cold start.