Konica Minolta DiMAGE Scan Dual IV Film Scanner

Excellent scanner for the money. Ideal and reasonable cost for anyone who has large quantites of slides or negeative to archive. Only drawback is if you want to purchase an extra slide or film holder (so you can load one while the other is in the scanner.) I priced online from Sony (who now owns Konica Minolta) and they want $42 plus shipping.

I was a little worried after reading some of the previous reviews. By my refurbished Scan Dual IV installed and worked fine right out of the box.

The quality and speed are better than I expected.

If you are familiar with photo editing, you should have no problem using the utilities that come with the scanner. The batch scanning feature and pre-set jobs make scanning that much easier.

First the good news...

When it's working properly, this is a decent scanner. Scans are relatively quick, even at full resolution, and colors seem to be accurate. The software is also very easy to use and is loaded with nifty features.

Now for some slightly worse news...

The most serious problem with this machine is that it's incredibly sensitive to dust. I clean my slides and negatives meticulously and the scans still appear covered with specks. The same negatives and slides are nearly spotless when scanned with another film scanner. I tried using the "auto dust brush" feature, but it does virtually nothing except soften the image. This makes it even more difficult to make sharp prints, given the already lower resolution of this machine vs. competing scanners.

The machine itself can also be a bit finicky, but once you understand how to use it that's not really a problem. For best results, wait for the software to prompt you, and then follow its instructions to the letter, or else you'll be in for a headache.

Now for the bad news...

Unfortunately, after a short while using this machine I started to notice the appearance of color banding on the scans. I would describe it as faint magenta-colored bars running horizontally across the image. It's not glaring, but it's bad enough that I would consider the scans unusable. The strange thing is that it doesn't always happen, but it's not much fun scanning the same negative four times to get a decent result.

At first, I assumed there was something wrong with the negatives; however, I could see no evidence of banding on the prints that came from the lab. I then started searching the web to see if anyone else had this banding issue, and it didn't take me long to find out that it's a known problem with this machine. At least three other reviewers here on Amazon write about banding. If you don't take my word for it, make sure you read all of the other reviews.

Based on my experience, I'm afraid I can't recommend this machine. However, if you manage to get one without the banding issue, and can live with the issues I've mentioned, then you'll probably be satisfied with it. Mind you, not as satisfied as you'd be with the pricey Nikon Coolscan V, or even the cheaper Microtek Artixscan and Polaroid Sprintscan.

I have had this product for four months and have scanned over 5,000 slides and negatives. I am happy with the results and versatility of the unit.

It works as advertised and I am still learning new ways to use the versatile software, which is based on Photoshop Elements.

The software is great when it works and the user knows how to deal with it. It is not very forgiving nor tolerant of odd conditions. New users will be frustrated if they don't spend the time to learn it.

My unit [or the product] has a defect: every 500 scans or so it just hangs mid-scan. The software cannot deal with this and it hangs as well, sometimes even crashing Windows [not that difficult, but I did note that the software is not robust]. The only solution is to pull the power plug on the hardware and re-start.

In summary, I would recommend this unit, warts and all, and would buy it again.

Well where to start. The software is pretty bad (-1) and to make matters worse, the documentation though thorough doesn't cover all the problems you will encounter (-2) and/or every little thing you need to worry about to properly install/use the product..! The scan quality is excellent though and you will enjoy it IF YOU GET IT TO WORK (What a pain in the neck!).
If its not working for you, try the following (I use XP):
1) reboot!
2) login
3) close any other scanners you have, make sure scanner is NOT plugged into a USB HUB! Even if its a USB 1.1 port, use it! The software and scanner will only hang on a USB 2.0 HUB.
4) MAKE SURE SCANNER DOOR IS CLOSED!, power on scanner
5) bring up the software you want to use, I use the launcher
6) you are probably using slides, slide the door open partially so the slide tray can just fit into it, you will feel the door settle into the position, about 3/4 inch, a light should be glowing inside since the unit is powered on.
7) insert slide tray slowly, the machine will grab it all of sudden...
8) select batch scan utility.
9) scanner takes over and processes your slides.
10) scanner spits slide tray out all the way when done...
that's it.

GOOD LUCK