Getting the most out of the Epson 4990

[Emre Yildirim]

I might still use those features, maybe they'll be useful with color scans. A friend of mine gave me this copy of Vuescan, so right now I'm using it because I don't want to spend the money to buy Silverfast Ai

[Kirk Gittings]

In that case use the Vuescan. SF is good but unless you get it in the pro package, I'm not sure it is worth the extra dough. For instance I won't buy it for my Nikon 8000. I am using Vuescan there.

There has also been some discussion here about Pos/neg today. After playing with it all day I think it is another myth. I can get much better color neg scans much easier in SF. The pos/neg workflow is the classic wrong approach-do a flat raw trans. scan and then invert it and color correct it in PS with the pos/neg plug in. The trouble is-as always with similar approaches-if you start out with a really flat scan and then boost the contrast in PS-you get huge increases in noise in the transition areas between stretched tones. No matter what I did I got massive increases in noise compared to a simple regularly adjusted SF color negative scan. Plus the color was more accurate with less color crossover in the SF scan also. And that is even with using the NPS profile in SF on the new ProS film (SF has not given us the new profiles).

[Percy]

I see I am not the only one underwhelmed by the 1800f. Mine was defective and the build quality of the holders I found lacking. Epson makes some amazingly good stuff. I tried the 1800f, based on glowing opinions. I am wishing I never heard of a microtek. I have replaced the 1800f with an Epson; I have yet to take it out of the box. I acquired it when I went to a local lab to get some color film developed. The owner was a friendly gentlemen; he invited me to view his entire set up, digital as well as traditional. Among the many expensive items in the work area, I found a Microtek 1100, and a Nikon 8000 ( I LOVE the 9000), both of which failed to perform well according to the gentlemen. I was shocked to discover he is now using an Epson 4990, and loving it.

In short: Don't be discouraged by those who opine the Epson is inferior. There is NO teacher like experience.

[Kirk Gittings]

Percy,

Sorry but I have had quite a few Epson's fail too (and Canon 9950f's), and also sorry but in my extensive side by side testing the 1800f outperformed the Epson in resolution and noise (see prior posts). But it has its strenghts. That is why...we run two 4990's, one 1800f and a Nikon 8000. Each does something we need and the others don't.

Having said that I am still waiting for a 4x5 dedicated film scanner. Like a big version of the Nikon would be really sweet.

[Percy]

Am I the only one who has a problem with such a high failure rate among various lines of tools marketed as "professional" ?

[Kirk Gittings]

Percy maybe you didn't read my post above. To be exact:

"Having gone thru like 12 flatbed scanners in three years (4 Canon 9950's, 1 Epson 3200, 2 4870's, 3 4990's, two Microtek 1800f's) and with seven failing in the first week. I have some suggestions to test yours for manufacturing defects when it comes out of the box."

from an earlier thread of mine. The consumer has become the beta tester for the manufacturers.

[Tom Westbrook]

Just wanted to mention that as of VueScan 8.3.39 the problem I had above with multisampling with the 4990 has been fixed. See www.hamrick.com.