Epson Perfection 4990 Photo Scanner

I've been looking for a way to scan slides and negatives and tried an Acer ScanWit a few years ago. But it was SCSI, could only scan four slides or one negative strip at a time and removing dust and scratches from the resulting images was really tedious. So I gave up pretty quickly and put the binders of negatives and slides back on the shelf.Finally, last month I figured I'd try again. Read the reviews and settled on this scanner, mostly because a) I have a 5+ year old Epson 1640SU that I've been happy with; b) prefer Firewire over USB2 because there are no bandwidth-sharing issues (long story); 3) it claims to have Vista support.Turns out the Vista support is kind of a an illusion: the software in the box is for XP, but I did manage to download a Vista TWAIN driver for this scanner from the Epson website. That may change in the near future, but it's a little misleading when you're expecting an out-of-the-box experience.I never did get the SilverFast software to work on Vista and couldn't figure out from the SilverFast website if I could qualify for a free upgrade. So that leaves kind of a bad taste, but...This scanner is wonderful, and even the Vista issues aren't grounds for removing even 1/2 a star. So far, I've scanned the 600+ slides from the 1980s (that went surprisingly fast even though it only does 8 at a time) and I'm on my first binder of negative pages and the counter is up to 915 images as I write this. I have Photoshop CS3, but I find it more convenient to scan using ACDSee, which is what I use to organize the 60GB of digital photos that these slides and negatives will be stored in. I'm scanning both 35mm slides and 35mm negatives at 3200DPI, which is equivalent to a 10mp digital camera. I am converting to low-compression JPEG (the resulting TIFFs and PNGs are absolutely huge and I didn't see much difference after converting to JPEG), and each image is about 2MB after conversion. Scans take a long time: with Digital ICE turned on, it takes about 6 minutes per slide or negative. It can scan 8 slides or 24 negatives at once, but my negatives are cut into strips of four images, so the actual rate is 16 negatives at a time, with an occasional straggler.So I normally mount the slides/negatives in their holders and do a preview scan, which takes about 30 seconds. The Epson software nearly always frames the slides/negatives correctly. I then rotate the individual images in the preview window if necessary, check "color restoration" for slides that have faded (a great feature that does a fantastic job--I haven't had to use it on negatives, but definitely for many of my slides), then select all and check "DIGITAL ICE Technology" and "Medium unsharp mask". I've scanned many images with and without ICE and it makes a world of difference. Scans take twice as long with ICE enabled, but I don't really care since this is a long-term project and I'm not waiting for the results and it's so much faster than removing dust/scratches manually with Photoshop.The only flaws in images I've seen are a lot of grain in some slides, which is a problem with the slide and not the scanner -- I rescanned with grain reduction turned on, which did an amazing job. A worse problem: some of my negatives are curled, and I'll occasionally get a moire rainbow pattern horizontally down the middle of the worst negatives -- usually those at the right end of the strip, the furthest from the supporting edge of the holder (I wish the holder clamped the negative between transparent panes, but it just kind of floats there). I've been able to compensate by rotating the negative 180 degrees and rescanning the worst cases, but most of the time it wasn't a great image to begin with and I didn't care and it wasn't worth the time to rescan it (I can fix it in Photoshop if I do care).I've also scanned a few prints with outstanding results, especially in dark areas. The ICE for prints doesn't work as well as the ICE for slides (it appears to be a different technology) and I've had it mistake features in the print itself as a flaw. But I found it's safe to run it at the lowest setting as long as I inspect each scan and rescan without ICE if there's a problem.I'm still using my old Epson 1640SU for documents (it has a sheet feeder) but I did scan a few pages with the 4990. At 300DPI or 600DPI, it's much faster than the 1640SU (actually, it's amazingly fast) and works well with Paperport. A feeder would be nice, but for the $200+ that would cost (if Epson even offered it), you could pick up a cheap scanner dedicated to office functions, or even an all-in-one printer.So there you have it. I consider the complaints minor and see no reason that this scanner deserves anything less than five stars.

Scanner was received missing photo templates for the glass, without software, and without an owners manual. The unit was poorly boxed in an ordinary cardboard box with sheets of styrofoam dumped inside.I highly recommend that you do not purchase this unit. if I were not in the Bahamas it would have been sent back immediately.

This is a nice scanner. BE CAREFUL to UNLOCK BOTH transportation locks!! Epson should really put an electronic kill switch for those who mess up here. I skimmed the instructions since I've set up numerous previous machines and unlocked one lock but not the upper lock. Ooops! Luckily the machine doesn't seem to be damaged.The scans from 4x5 film are fantastic. Make sure to use a fair amount of unsharp masking in Photoshop when done scanning. I've used 200%, Radius 2.0, Threshold 1 to extract more detail. When doing this, it is difficult to distinguish the result between the 4990 and that of an expensive drum scanner.A scan from a 35mm negative is much better than I expected. I've made 8x10 prints from a scanned 35mm negative and it looks very very good.Scans needed minimal color correction which is a great time saver. I'm quite impressed with SilverFast SE which is bundled with the scanner.The film holders could be better as they are a bit flimsy.

I bought the 4990 to reproduce photos and slides. To steal a line fron another review, the results are suitable for refrigerator art, but just barely. Photos made from slides are particularly terrible. I would say results from any enlargement are unsatisfactory for any purpose.I don't blame Epsen. Their products are generally as good as their competitors, often better. I think the problem - at least for me - is that I believed the hype that high end scanners produce professional or near-professional results. This claim leads to unrealistic expectations for people who know what professional work looks like. The results are barely good enough to send copies of pictures to close family members. You certainly could not use one of these scanners in a professional endeavor, or even for serious hobby work.It makes great copies of text, but so do scanners that cost $100. My advise is to buy a scanner for $100 to $200 for text scanning and hire a lab to do your photo and slide work.

This scanner produces superb quality images. Installation could not be easier. I use SuSE 10.2.1. put together the scanner and I did not install any software as the manual said. I do not have windows.2. Linux is running. I attached the usb port and power on3. A message comes in the screen saying "scanner usb configure y/n" I said yes4. Open yast and I just say next to a couple of defaults. Some files are installed.If you press edit it recognizes it at "GT-x800: driver epkowa (package iscan-free) rpvices complete functionality". After installation the scanner is recognized as Epson Perfection 4990.5. Go to Graphic/scanning and there are two scan applications : xsane and Kooka. Both recognize the Perfection 4990 and both work great. There is even an OCR selection but I have not played with it.The whole installation 4:30 minutes without typing or reading anything :-).I am sure that there is a zillion more choices but I write this message after done my first scan of an old picture with scratches (all gone), unbelievable!Amazon as usual is hassle free. I ordered it yesterday and I have it today. I am a premier member so shipping overnite was almost nothing. Price overall was almost U$S 100 cheaper than locally (which I'd have had e to ordered it and wait). I ordered also the 3 years extension service plan.If you run Linux and you want a top scanner do not look any further. SuSE 10.2 has all what you need.[...]-=terry(Denver)=-

Acheté pour scanner des négas 6x6, tout juste bon pour tirer en A4 mais bon, acheter un scanner dédié à 1500€, pas la peine donc à ce prix là, une affaire, il était quasi neuf !