| Nikon 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 G ED-IF AF | |
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Epson Perfection 4990 Photo Scanner |  | Brand: Epson
This item is no longer available
Rating:  56 reviews
Media: Electronics
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Shipping Weight (lbs): 20
Dimensions (in): 23 x 16 x 10
Warranty: 1 year warranty
MPN: B11B175012
Model: B11B175012
UPC: 010343852181
EAN: 0010343852181
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| Features:
| • | 4,800 x 9,600 dpi resolution, 4.0 Dmax, 48-bit color, 16-bit grayscale | | • | Adapters for slides, film strips, medium format, and 4-by-5 film | | • | Epson Easy Photo Fix and Digital Ice technology | | • | Adobe Photoshop Elements, LaserSoft Imaging SilverFast SE 6 | | • | USB 2.0 and FireWire interfaces, PC and Mac compatible |
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| Accessories:
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Box includes Epson Perfection 4990 scanner, quickstart guide, power cord, Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0, scanner software, USB 2.0 Hi-speed cable and 4 Film holders. The Epson Perfection 4990 Photo is an ideal tool for the professional photographers and enthusiast. This high-performance scanning solution can handle all standard film and photo formats, restore torn or damaged originals and deliver stunning quality scans. Printing, enlarging or archiving is simple, and with its 4.0DMax optical density and the large 8 x 10" film adapter, users have the flexibility to to scan multiple film formats and in large volumes. The increidble 4800 x 9600dpi resolution retains the quality and color of your originals. Supports USB 1.1 and 2.0, FireWire Humidity - 10% to 80% without condensation (Operating) Dimensions(WxDxH) - 11.9 x 18.75 x 5.28 (304 x 476 x 134 mm) Weight - (6.7kg)
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 56
 RIGHT from the start May 5, 2005
Arthur K. Yellin (Olney, MD United States)
199 out of 202 found this review helpful
Seldom have I been so pleased with a purchase!
UNLIKE the Microtek scanner I previously owned that gave me nothing but aggravation from the git-go, I loaded the software, plugged the Epson 4990 in with the included USB cable and, using Photoshop as the platform, IMMEDIATELY scanned an 8 x 10 page of medium format negatives successfully. Eyeballing the colors, I did not think ANY correction was needed. I had NO PROBLEMS loading the software or with anything else.
I subsequently read the CD contained instructions and found that I had failed to use the 8 x 10 transparent media placement guide. It worked ANYWAY!
This scanner is particularly suited for "serious" amateur and professional photographers. It comes with negative holders for 35mm, 120 and 4 x 5 sheet film. In addition, as noted above, it will also scan the whole 8 x 10 inch area so you can do proof sheets from your transparent negative file pages.
I also scanned a music CD cover and liner, using Photoshop to convert the liner to black and white, and a 4 x 6 color photo. The scanner worked perfectly on all. The resolution of the four to six point type of the CD liner was crisp. This was a scan as a reflective image and NOT using OCR software.
Since I wrote my original review, I have had an opportunity to try the scanner with Caere OCR software. The 4990 did a spectacualr job of reading some old documents. It only had problems with type that was over a severe fold in the paper or obscured by marks from the very old photocopying processes. This is to be expected.
Several months later, I am still extremely pleased with this scanner!
Nice colors. Good software. Great scanner for a variety of film October 10, 2005
Mr. Ditto
85 out of 87 found this review helpful
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.
Epson 4990 Photo Scanner March 21, 2006
Gary L. Strong (Portland, Oregon, USA)
66 out of 67 found this review helpful
I needed a machine to scan my collection of transparencies and color negatives. This model seemed to have what was needed. After loading the software, I began with Monaco EZ color and ran the calibrations and created the profiles for transparencies and reflective prints; this was fast and fun. I was surprised with the closely matching results.
The sharpness was very good; it was so sharp that I needed the Digital ICE software to remove dust and scratches. This ICE is incredible! Takes longer to scan, but is much quicker than cloning out all the artifacts. There is no loss of sharpness.
I found the provided film holders to really work well with the automated batch system. All is square and cropped.
I have scanned printer's film and the original halftone dots held; that's sharp!
Color negatives were more of a challenge; this is normal for scanning input. A gray card or gray item in the picture helps as you can click on the preview with a tool to make the gray neutral; "click!" and the color snaps bright and clean!
The software can be used several ways, with a Photoshop compatible plug-in, and several stand alone methods. It does fine with no special skills or Silverfast Ai has sophisticated controls for the adventuresome.
This machine is for ALL users! Kids, photographers of all levels, and professionals in the graphic arts. I am a drum scanner, photographer, and pixel artist; this unit and software please me a lot.
At present Canon 9950F's main competitor - is it better ? December 23, 2006
Keith Joseph (West Berkshire, England)
61 out of 63 found this review helpful
I use a Canon 9950F scanner at home, but chose this Epson Perfection 4990 for work use (to scan things like very hi-res B&W TEM negatives as well as 35mm slides). So how do the two very similar priced and spec'd scanners compare? Well essentially in terms of the quality of 35mm negative and slide scans there is nothing in it. Both scanners provide high quality images at 2400 dpi but the miniscule gains in scanning at 4800dpi simply aren't worth the 4x increase in file size (to nearer 100Mb). By comparing scan quality from both machines I really couldn't find any significant difference at all. This is echoed by the very useful in-depth reviews of both scanners at independent photo-i.co.uk .
The Canon 9950F has the advantage of scanning 12 slides or 30 negatives at a go compared to the Epson's 8 slides or 24 negatives. The Canon is definitely a bit better built and put together (e.g. fitting the reflective plate is really fiddly on the Epson and their 35mm slide holder design makes removing slides slightly more tricky). Canon's in-house FARE dust removal is similar and a little faster than Epson Digital ICE (Kodak) dust removal. However Epson score's highly with its far better TWAIN software and can scan up to full A4 negatives (the Canon is fixed to it's film holder sizes to 4x5 inch max). Both scanners are now supplied with Silverfast SE twain software as well as the in-house version. This is less useful for the Canon as Silverfast doesn't support FARE, although it does allow the Canon to scan negatives to A4. In order to get more functionality out of the Canon I have upgraded to Silverfast Ai for another $115 (still no FARE support though) - whereas with this Epson 4990 I am happy with the Epson TWAIN interface. This Epson 4990 also deals with odd film sizes like my childhood Kodak Instamatic 125 slides that are square rather than 35mm oblong - the Canon 9950F twain driver is so useless it chops off the top and bottom to fit them to 35mm size (and you can't do anything about it unless you use Silverfast without FARE dust removal instead). Plus Sivlerfast supports ICE on this Epson.
Scanned image quality is a little soft with 35mm film on both scanners compared to a Nikon slide scanner (although the out-of-focus effect at 100% is also because the scanners have a higher resolution than the film grain). Things like shadows and sharpen are best left to Photoshop post-processing rather than using the TWAIN options (I do use Photoshop CS2 not 'elements' as supplied). So the 35mm scans require things like Unsharp Mask (USM) and shadow/highlight. In fairness all digital camera images are normally highly image processed (e.g. noise reduced, colour balanced and sharpened) by the camera, so expect to use Scan/Scangear or Photoshop to do the same with scans. The 35mm film image quality is very good for the price, particularly with ~100 ASA slide, and very similar to that of the Canon 9950F (and appears rather better than results from my dedicated 35mm 2700dpi Benq Scanwit 2740S film scanner, particularly for cheap 400 ASA colour negatives and shadows - although these flatbed scanners need more twain and post-scan tweaking to get the best results). Cheap colour negatives always scan very badly as they are often higher ASA (larger grain size) and were not deigned to be enlarged beyond A4.
Scanning quality on anything else like photographs, A4 paper or large format negatives is naturally top notch, as the optimal resolution of 2400 dpi of these scanners is well beyond that of the source material - or the resulting image file size would be too enormous for any home/office use anyway. Even professionals would find these scanners OK for large 4x5" and larger negatives or working copies of 35mm. I have compared this Epson's and the Canon's output to that of £12,000 Imacon Flextight 484 drum scanner, and for my old consumer 100 ASA slides and film, there's very little difference in image quality - the Flextight fuzz is a little sharper at full mag and dark shadows are resolved a tiny bit better with less noise (and don't need `shadow/highlight'), but that's all - naturally the Flextight scans at for higher speeds though. So this Epson's a highly recommended and incredibly versatile scanner - although also check out it's new upmarket stable mates the Epson V700 and V750 at Amazon. These flatbed scanners have few benefits over far cheaper stable-mates if you don't want to scan film or photographs though.
 Watch out for film deposits under the glass! February 23, 2006
Richard K. Yamauchi (Livermore, CA USA)
78 out of 83 found this review helpful
My six months old 4990 has a noticeable film deposits under the glass. The glass was clear when I bought it. Apparently other owners of the 4990 have had identicle problems (discussions at howtofixcomputers.com). Epson will clean it for free if the 4990 is still under warranty, but this is not a one time problem, but a continuous one (you have to pay Epson to clean the glass after warranty expires). The film is visible when the 4990 is powered up and the interior light is on. With the lid out of the way, look at the glass at 10 to 30 degrees angle. I hope your glass is clear.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 56
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