Epson 4490 Scanner - Any Good?

September 14, 2006 11:31 AM

Epson Perfection 4490 Scanner - Any good experiences with it?

Someone had recommended it on a previous askMeFi scanner thread.

Bought one and read the reviews on Amazon. A few people had a problem with a horrible grinding noise during scans but another reviewer dismissed it as people who didn't unlock the two locks on the scanner. I unlocked the two locks and have the horrible grinding noise.

I have two options from Epson [it is past 30 days in terms of returns to Amazon] - I can get another 4490 (with the premise that it is a 1/1000 fluke.) or I can pay the difference to upgrade to a different Epson. Any recommendations? I will be using it to scan photos mostly and documents.

posted by terrortubby to technology (1 comment total)

I have one and when I was researching which one to get the next option up had a larger film scanning area for large format negatives (4X5 IIRC) and a higher DMAX rating. If your not happy with what the scanner will produce in the shadowy areas of your negatives it might be worth it to upgrade. Thus far I haven't run into problems with mine and actually found that negatives that are impossible to print the traditional way turn out when I run them through the scanner.

Another option is to head over to flickr and look in the toy camera, holga, I shoot film groups. People have asked for scanner recommendations before and some users have linked to film they've scanned with both Epson scanners which might help you decide which way you want to go.
posted by squeak at 12:03 PM on September 14, 2006