Home > Consumer Reviews > Minolta Dimage Scan Elite Scanner with Digital ICE

I CANNOT FULLY RATE THE QUALITY OF THIS PRODUCT YET. I AM STILL TRYING TO GET THE COMPUTER/SCANNER INTERFACE HARDWARE TO RUN IT AND I DO NOT HAVE A CHEAP COMPUTER. I HAD TO CALL THE MINOLTA SERVICE OFFICE IN NJ TO GET THE CORRECT INFO AND WAS TOLD IT TAKES A SPECIAL CARD AND CABLE (SO FAR) TO HOOK IT UP. BEWARE OF THIS BEFORE YOU BUY. I RECOMMEND GOING TO THE MINOLTA WEB SITE AND CHECKING THE REQUIREMENTS PAGE FOR THIS ITEM TO SEE IF YOUR COMPUTER IS COMPATIBLE BEFORE YOU BUY.

I've been using this scanner for the past several months with mainly color transparencies and have been very happy with the results. The Digital ICE feature is invaluable, saving me hours of time retouching. The software is easy to use and works well. If you want to do a full resolution 16 bit scan with ICE, it can take about 20 minutes, but everyday scans for web use are quick and clean. The few B&W and color negative scans have turned out nice too.

My only complaint is that once in a while, maybe every 10 times I use the scanner, it seems to scan poorly, like it's missing whole chunks of color. Restarting the machine and the scanner takes care of that though. All in all I'm very happy with it and saved a lot of money compared to a scanner like the Nikon Supercoolscan, it's nearest competitor.

Happy scanning!

I did quite a bit of research before deciding on this scanner, so I'll sum up for you what took me many hours. I also considered a couple of the lower end Minolta Dimage scanners, as well as the Nikon Coolscan and the HP Photosmart S20.

Essentially, they all promise to scan 35mm film, and with an adapter, it can also do APS. However, promises are just that - empty for most of these scanners. This one however does it all:

- Digital ICE (you absolutely need this for cleaning images after they are scanned in - do NOT get a scanner without this, you'll be sorry!). - 2,820 dpi resolution (you always want to scan as high as possible. You can always sample down and lower resolution, but you can't go the other way without quality degradation) - Fast scanning speeds (with the exception of $2,000 models, this is the fastest scanner around. On my Windows PC is takes around 30 secs. On a Mac is takes 10 or so per FINAL scan.)

The problem with the Photosmart 20 is that it doesnt have a proper ICE image cleaner and film scans poorly. The Nikon coolscan doesnt have a good dut guard, and you end up with dust on your negatives/slides, which scans in horribly! UGH!

This one has virtually no weakness. SCSI connection makes it extremely fast! Get it and you'll be happy you did.