Which Scanner??

[Dayna]

Epson 4490 or HP 4890??? I need to make a choice ASAP. I will be using it for my small home business to scan photos and slides. The HP can batch scan 16 slides at a time whereas I do not know yet what the Epson batch scans...
I need the one that will be the best quality faster, etc. Any Ideas?

[lordsmurf]

Flatbed scanner do a terrible job of scanning slides. I mean just rotten, awful, crap quality. Only use those for scanning paperwork, such as printed photos.

If you want to scan slides, get a film/slide scanner.

I have one of these:
http://www.nikonusa.com/template.php?cat=1&grp=98&productNr=9239
The Nikon has ICE-4 which is really nice, and it only runs about $550 or so.
It uses Nikkor ED glass too, extremely nice.

I would not suggest anything other than a Nikon unless you're looking to spent $1000 or more. Even then, I would go Nikon over Kodak (Canon, Polaroid, Minolta, etc ... not even choices).

Rule of thumb is you can only scan mounted slides about 4 at a time, and if you run ICE-4 (to clean off dust and whatnot), then you're looking at a minute apiece. That's fast. Unmounted slides can hold either 5 or 6 at a time, as a positive-scan filmstrip.

A good film scanner will focus and get the best exposure. A flatbed does none of this, and you usually just get a dark, dirty, blurry image.



ADDED:

B&H has one, just out of stock right now:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=310476&...ughType=search

Some places on Amazon have them.

But I'd suggest calling this place http://www.arlingtoncamera.com and seeing if they have any in stock. The site says "out of stock" but I know the store had several of them not long ago. They might even match B&H if you ask.

[kschang]

Well... both of the above have adaptors, but lordsmurf's right... you want a dedicated slide scanner for best quality. But if you're just starting out, I guess either one will do.

[lordsmurf]

Oh yeah, you NEED ... NEED!!!!.... Adobe Photoshop. Everything else is just a wanna-be program. Nothing else out there is going to give you the image control required to do a high quality job on still images.

[Dayna]

I cannot afford the film/slide scanners thats why I am deciding between these 2. The Epson comes with Adobe Photoshop 2.0 but is the elements version.

[lordsmurf]

Then I suggest you not offer the service. Your customer will not likely be happy. I doubt you will be happy either.

Also, $500-600 investment for a new service is dirt cheap.

If you don't already have Photoshop, the "Elements" version is about $50-100 (find a sale) and has all the basics you would need for photography editing.

[VegasBud]

Dayna,

The two scanners you mentioned have similiar capabilities, so other factors come into play. If the Epson comes with Photoshop Elements, and you intend to use it, that's an additional cost you won't have to pay. Personally, I love Epson scanners, and have had nothing but trouble with anything made by HP. If it was me, I would go with the Epson.

For photo scanning, you should get very good results. For the slide scanning part, lordsmurf and kschang are right that a dedicated film scanner (especially by Nikon) would give the best quality, but if some of the slides you'll be working with are medium format, you would have to jump up to the Super Coolscan 9000 ED for the better part of $2,000. That sounds like it's way outside your budget.

There's also something to be said for just raw dpi. Both the scanners you mention have 4800 dpi optical resolution (800 dpi optical more than the Nikon film scanners). The extra resolution won't make the flatbed give results like a dedicated film scanner, but it may very well give you acceptable results for your requirements.

[JerryB]

Epson 4490 or HP 4890??? I need to make a choice ASAP. I will be using it for my small home business to scan photos and slides. The HP can batch scan 16 slides at a time whereas I do not know yet what the Epson batch scans...
I need the one that will be the best quality faster, etc. Any Ideas?

Hi,
this is my 2 cents worth...lol... as far as hp in general never had a problem with thier scanners... in fact i have a old hp5 scuzi on my pc , still works fine... and just bought a new one and installation went fine no problems and it did as advertise.... in fact a little suprised on the film and slide.... it was better than i expected but maybe because I am not that critical on quality..smiling...

I wish I saw your post a few days ago I could give a lot of links or on reviews/test and such them.... but I have deleted all of that stuff.. grrr.. smiling

In general there both good and they both have there pro's and con's and will depend on what important to you...... we don't know any specifics about how your going to use the slide/film scanning and the degree of quality required!

the pro's of the hp .... it has about the fastest slide/film scanning times of the flatbeds I saw based on 600 dpi setting..! it has a variety of templates..... it can handle just about any size negative/slide that you may have!! and a template is not neccesarily required.. that important especialy if you get a odd size negative ....

con's.... not enthused about there automatic cleaning..... I turned that off and used my other software...... according to experts the 600 dpi scanningof slides/film qaulity ..is fair... espson maybe a little bit better. microteck s-400 is probably the best qaulity at 600dpi slide film..but it very very slow , a snail is faster..lol....

On the espson..... templates can hold 4 or 5 slides.... scanning times fair....film/slide scanning quality at 600dpi slightly better than hp, there bundle paint program better than hp..... although i would use a better program...
con... from some reports..... there appears on each scanning session there long delay time before starting.... couple of people ended up making there own slide templates because the espson templates had a tendency preventing the scan of the full slide... for example if a arm is at the edge of the slide.... well the finish scanning would be missing part of that arm....not good.. smile...!! so they ended up making there own templates.... to overcome that problem

the above is a mixtures of both official and personal submited reviews, people I talked to and my own experience...!! but like I said... there both good they both have pro and cons and it will depend a lot on what important to you...!!

[Dayna]

Well, I am trying them both out right now and so far am more happier with the HP than the Epson. I can't get the Epson to recognize my film for one and have tried all 3 modes. It is making this loud popping sound every 2 seconds as it scans! I don't know what else to do with it.

When you mentioned your new HP, what model do you have?

[JerryB]

Well, I am trying them both out right now and so far am more happier with the HP than the Epson. I can't get the Epson to recognize my film for one and have tried all 3 modes. It is making this loud popping sound every 2 seconds as it scans! I don't know what else to do with it.

When you mentioned your new HP, what model do you have?

Hi dayna,
I ended up with the 4850, now there no difference between performance and quality of the 4850 and the 8490!! ... the two biggest difference was the hp 4850, it handles only 4 slides and 6 film frames and the hp8490 handles a lot more.. smile.... also for the 4850 the holder for the film and slide is builtin to the lid... I have not problems with that idea however.... if you have old warped slide frames... smile..... it can be alittle bit of a hassle sliding them in, using templates in that situation is better..... and the 4850 can't handle irregular sizes of negatives...... and the 8490 can!

right now , the 4850 is sufficent for me , i don't plan doing a large number.... however..... I discovered I may have a need to scan irregular size negatives plus that difficulty with sliding in the slides in the lid, if the card board is warped... can be a problem... so I am thinking thinking of trading in the 4850 for the 8490....!!! other wise... like i mentioned the scanning quality was the same for both ... ease of installion good, ease of use... satisfactory to good.... the same...

as far as scanning regular photgraphs and such have always been satisfied.....

[Dayna]

Well, made my mind up and went and took those back and got the Canon 8400f after reading reviews on it. Got here and tried it out and what a difference I see between it and the other 2. I havent tried any slides yet, but only 35mm film. The results were nice. I am trying to figure still how to change the dpi settings, because I need them to look good enough to use in montages too on a video DVD. I am happy with this one so far.