I got to your forum by searching to see if anyone had developed a holder for 8x10 film for use on the Epson 4990. This is because my main problem has been with Newton Rings when scanning 8x10 B&W Ilford Delta 100 negatives. I switched to scanning emulsuion side down on the glass, and I thought this would solve the problem, but after days of retouching deep inside these immense scans I can still see them on a smaller scale, and they are impossible to retouch out. Years ago I tried wet scanning on a 2450 and all I did was make a big mess, so I am loathe to try it again, and don't want to have to go searching for Kami fluid.

As for shasrpness, I didn't do official tests, but noticed no loss of shaprness scanning directly on the glass. In fact, I would swear that the emulsion side down scans directly on the glass were the sharpest of all.

You got me worried about the scan lines issue, but I never noticed scan lines in my scans with the 4990, and I ALWAYS saw scan lines deep inside the PRO scans I used to make as an operator of an Isomet 455 drum scanner and a Scitex Eversmart Pro Scanner. When printing up to 13x 19 on an R2400 I have noticed lines in midtone sky (not high highlight or deep shadow) areas, but immeditaely attributed these to the printer. I may do some scans in a perpendicular direction to the previous to prove if it is the scanner or the printer, but I have always been convinced that all artifacts in the scan should be noticeable on the screen with a quality graphics card.

When putting 8x10 film down for scanning using the film area guide, I used transparent polyester film tape (just like in my drum scanning days) to secure it. The film will start to bow when heated by the scanner. But I noticed that I could only use the tape on the long side (top and bottom) and not on the left and right. This is because the scanner takes an initial reading of the base emulsion for minimum density on the egde and uses that reading as a reading for the whole row of that portion of the scan, in both preview and scan mode! (Using Epson Scan on Mac OS X at least) Using tape to hold it down on the short side back, I got a lighter band all the way across the scan where I used the tape, which had a different base reading from where the scanner saw the clear film first.