black screen preview problem on epson 4990

**dede95064** · 22-Apr-2009, 23:25

hello,

i'm having problems with epson's scan software as well as silverfast ai's software when it comes to scanning color negatives. up until recently, they both worked fine and the preview images looked fine. now, whenever i try to scan a color negative, the entire preview screen is completely black save for a few streaks of color here and there. i tried moving the crop box around but still nothing. usually that corrects a color problem. when i try to do a reflective scan, everything works fine. it's just that it's having issues with negatives. hmm.

anyone else had similar problems to correct this? i don't have either cd lying around to reinstall everything again as it's been three years since i first installed them.

thanks for any suggestions!

**RPNugent** · 23-Apr-2009, 05:12

Go to the Epson web site. Updated drivers are there for download making the CD unnecessary.

Are you sure you film holder is in right and not obscuring the preview area since that will mess up the scanner?

**wclavey** · 23-Apr-2009, 07:02

I had a similar problem a while back (maybe a year ago, now) - - I was primarily using Silverfast at the time but had them both installed on the computer and neither would work - - it just happened over night. The answer from Silverfast was to download the current version and reinstall it - - not to go back to the old version on the CD. I did that for both Silverfast and Epson scan and it has been fine ever since. I am guessing that I got an update of the OS that trashed some part of the driver... but reinstalling fixed both. And I have since switched back to using Epson scan predominantly.