Epson Perfection 4490 Photo Scanner
by Epson
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List Price: Our Price: Calculated in a shopping cart Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: CE See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Epson Perfection 4490 Photo Scanner
Customer Review: Review for those with Windows Vista X64
Summary: 4 Stars
1. Hardware-great scans but a little noisy. The scanner is fairly large, so plan on a decent sized space for it. Scanner has a power switch and runs off AC power instead of the power from your USB port. The lid can be removed in order to scan books or large documents. You can scan photographs (4 x (3x5) at one time), negatives, and your run of the mill documents. Four buttons on the front include scan to email, pdf, printer, and disk. Document feeder is optional and expensive.
2. Software-
a)Digital Ice-Cleans up your negatives scans (not photographs). For that you use "Dust Removal". This software is slow but excellent at what it is supposed to do.
b)Twain Driver-works fine with Vista x64, but don't use the CD that came with the scanner-download the driver and utilities instead from the Epson support web site. Do NOT install the XP driver or you WILL have problems.
c)It comes with a utility called Epson Creativity Suite. I had to tweak my software a little bit in order to be able to program the front buttons correctly. First the scanner uses the WIA interface to the operating system. In my case (Vista x64) I noticed that I could change the applications associated with the scanner's front buttons, but could not save the changes, I would get an "event handler" error with a message to check that the scanner was on and connected properly. The fix was to go into SERVICES-PROPERTIES for "Windows Image Aquisition" and change the log on to the "System Account"-otherwise the driver won't have permissions to change the necessary registry settings. The second problem I had with the buttons was that the scan to email button would NOT start up Outlook 2007. The fix-was to edit the file "C:\Program Files (x86)\epson\Creativity Suite\Attach To Email\MailerDB.ini" and change the lines ExePath= and ExeName to point to the directory and EXE file, respectively for the Outlook application. After that the whole suite worked flawlessly.
d)The scanner includes software to perform OCR, as well as scan business cards with are "lite" versions of their originals. They do work. It also includes a "file manager" which I found almost unnecessary. Last, but not least, is Adobe Photoshop Elements ver 2.0. One word-Excellent! (Get yourself the upgrade to the latest version, as they have increased the features quite a bit.
3. Support
a) Online-Don't expect much help beyond the very BASIC. The download sections have the drivers for Vista X64 and MAC OSX oses, as well as the earlier versions of these OSes.
b) Paper Manual-forget it!-The only thing you'll find is the HTML based manual on the CDROM. Once again VERY BASIC information.
c) Telephone-don't expect much help here. You're better off finding it on the NET yourself.
Bottom line-If you have VISTA x64 this scanner gives good bang for the buck but don't expect a lot of help or advice if you run into trouble.
Customer Review: Cannot recommend
Summary: 1 Stars
This scanner was trouble from the start. It made this crazy noise during prescanning and scanning, sometimes producing a scan and sometimes just a blur of the image. Then, suddenly, it stopped doing that and worked quite well until just after the warranty ran out. Then it started again with the noise and it appears now to be unable to scan anything at any time. I am quite disappointed and would be very hesitant to buy another Epson scanner of any type.Customer Review: great scanner
Summary: 5 Stars
i bought this scanner for my parents on christmas. they needed something that had good quality photo scanning as well as negative scanning. they love this scanner. once you install the included software, it saves quality scans with the single touch of a button. great for me beacuse i had to set it up and great for them because it's so easy to use. they are even scanning negatives with ease. i did some research and decided to buy the epson perfection over the h.p or the fujitsu and could not be more satisfied. i got a great price on amazon also! great scanner!Customer Review: New Epson User
Summary: 4 Stars
Have an HP All-in-one printer, copier & scanner and wanted to scan some old photos for a DVD slideshow. Was not very happy with the quality of the HP scanner (it was included for a nominal price when I purchased my iMac, thus it is not a very expensive one). Decided to look for an inexpensive photo scanner and the reviews on Amazon led me to the Epson 4490. Setup on the Mac was easy and straightforward - it worked right out of the box. Quality of the scanned photos is very good - not spectacular, but significantly better than the HP. I doubt that unless you spend a thousand dollars or more for a scanner you will never get digitized photos that match the original photo or that matches photos from a good quality digital camera. However, this scanner, for the price ($150), works well, is fairly fast, and I would recommend it for anyone who is looking to build a library of old photos on your computer and doesn't want to spend a lot of cash. Have not scanned any slides yet so I cannot address this feature.Customer Review: Epson Perfection 4490 Scanner
Summary: 4 Stars
I am very pleased with this scanner, especially for the money. I have no experience much higher priced scanners, but am very pleased with this one compared to my previous one. Very easy to use with excellent results. The slide scan is not fast but I didn't pay hundreds of dollars, either.