Epson Perfection 4990 Photo Sanning Software Download

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Epson 4990 Scanner
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Epson 4990 Photo Scanner

Epson 4990 Photograph Scanner.

Introduction

This review is from 2005. The 4990 is an excellent scanner regardless of year, however if ownership a scanner in 2008, I'd look at the current Epson V700, V750 and V500, which supercede it. Please treat the balance of this review equally an historic piece from 2005 since you tin't get the 4990 new anymore, and be rest assured that the 4990 is a superb scanner regardless of historic period.

The EPSON 4990 is a dream to install and use and easily gives great movie scans, especially from hard-to-browse Fuji Velvia 50. Information technology scans so well that when I have fourth dimension to apply it I'd rather be scanning my moving picture than running comparisons to my more expensive film scanners. It'southward 99% as good, and possibly better, than my $3,000 Minolta Multi-PRO scanner.

Encounter an case scan from a 6x12cm transparency here. Come across an case of its color accuracy hither.

There'southward nothing I can find to fault the 4990. It just makes groovy scans of anything, and makes it fast and easy.

As of 2006 Epson announced a more expensive and meliorate V700 / V750 scanner you lot might want to investigate. The 4990 sold for around $400 and the 4990 PRO for about $550 in 2005. I've e'er bought these online since if I detest them I can easily return them for a refund.

Here'southward an example here's the first epitome I scanned from the 4990 (huge 1MB file). The colors are exactly what was on my iv x v" transparency. Of course I had to reduce the resolution to one-tenth (one-hundredth of the full pixel count) to fit your screen.

The EPSON 4990 underscores how scanners go better and better every twelvemonth. It's almost as good (possibly better than) my dedicated Minolta Multi-PRO film scanner for which I spent $3,000 five years ago.

I got only the basic $400 Photograph model since I already take the color calibration software and targets that come included with the $599 PRO model. Guess what? Fifty-fifty without colour calibration the colour accurateness of the basic 4990 Photo is the best I've ever seen from any scanner, and that'southward right out of the box without doing anything! I Dearest this!

Caveat and Applications

Full general

If yous shoot panoramic, medium or large format motion picture then the 4990 may exist the simply scanner you ever need. I shoot all these formats and that'south why I got a 4990.

I shoot Fuji Velvia transparencies. Different motion picture scans differently. I hear Velvia is the toughest, thus if I like it on Velvia it ought to be even improve with other film.

I don't shoot color negatives. This is because at that place is no standard for colour rendition with negative motion-picture show and I usually go atrocious colors every time I try to browse or print information technology. The great news is the 3 color negatives I scanned on the 4990 actually looked great; better than whatever other film scanner I've used. Color rendition with negatives is hit-and-miss depending on what motion-picture show yous use.

35 mm

If you simply shoot ordinary 35 mm film, slides or prints your money probably will be ameliorate spent on a defended 35 mm film scanner which I cover hither.

So once again, the 4990 is and then ridiculously good, and gave the best color I've ever gotten on a scan of a color negative, that as I become more familiar with the 4990 that it simply may be amend than a dedicated moving picture scanner. EPSON makes no dedicated film scanners. I find EPSON scanners the most fun to utilize because their software is the best. The software behind the Nikon and Minolta scanners is never really that easy or smooth to use.

Prints

For prints the 4990 is more than than you need. Whatsoever inexpensive flatbed scanner will practice a great job for prints. I still love my EPSON 1640 I bought as a refurbished unit for $fifty five years ago. For prints I propose getting the least expensive EPSON yous can find. They're all slap-up. You only need a maximum of 300 DPI for scanning prints, and even the crummiest scanners do 600 DPI. The merely reason to scan prints at college resolutions is if you are scanning an optically printed impress and intend to enlarge information technology. Almost all prints made today are printed digitally, peculiarly at 1 hour labs. These digitally made prints are only printed at 300 DPI, and then there is no more detail to be enlarged across scanning at 300 DPI.

BASICS

Introduced February 2005, this scanner and it'southward brethren are so adept that Minolta stopped making my Multi PRO film scanner.

There are two versions: The Epson Perfection 4990 PHOTO for $449 and the Epson Perfection 4990 PRO for $599. The only difference is that the PRO version includes colour scale software and targets also as another software. They both include Photoshop Elements 2.0, a great program for almost annihilation.

The Epson 4990 scans whatsoever size pic or file pages up to viii ten ten."

The 4990'due south pic adaptor (TPU) is much more than than most scanners' elementary low-cal box; the 4990 has a lamp higher up that scans forth with the sensors below. This helps to give it it's iv.0 DMax spec.

Information technology has Ice for both reflective prints and for flick. Ice for picture show removes grit and scratches while ICE for prints removes surface defects like folds and creases. ICE works on everything, but you have to use the picture show holders for motion picture scans. ICE doesn't work on 8x10" flick.

COMPARISONS

I'grand working on comparisons to the Microtek 1800f and Minolta Multi-PRO. All these scans take a lot of time to make.

I'll make a dangerous guesstimate, based on just a few scans, that the 4990 is much meliorate than the 1800f and nearly equally practiced as my Multi-PRO.

You lot can come across a quick comparison between the 1800f and 4990 here. These make the 1800f look then bad that I need to make ii new scans at the same time and run into if the difference is really that peachy.

First results show the 4990 much easier to use than the Multi-PRO, but that the Multi-PRO is, as expected, sharper. And so I discovered that the default USM in the EPSON 4990 is at too large a radius and that at high resolutions the 4990 gives better results applying a correct USM in Photoshop. I'll let you know equally I acquire this. Surprisingly, the 4990 seems to have the aforementioned or amend dynamic range than the Multi-PRO! More to follow.

Specifications

Browse Surface area: viii 10 x" for film, 8.v x xi.7" for prints

Flick Holders

a.) Viii mounted 35mm slides

b.) Four half-dozen-frame strips of 35mm (24 frames total)

c.) Three 120 strips, 6 x 12 cm max. each strip

d.) Ii 4 x 5" sheets

Even more fun is the 4990'due south 120 strip holders are 12 cm wide, then vi x 12 cm panoramics can exist scanned easily in i footstep. Actual discontinuity is a rather generous 56 10 121 mm; the standard half dozen x 12 format is really 56 x 112 mm. It likewise has an eight" x 10" guide for transparencies and proof sheets without film holders for scanning moving picture mounted in file pages.

Information technology focuses only above the glass platen and so if you're making or buying holders for odd sizes it works perfectly; just don't put the picture directly on the platen for all-time focus. Expect around on the net since in that location are garage shops that make custom pic holders for weird size moving picture for the Epsons.

Resolution: 4,800 DPI

DMax: 4.0

Interfaces: USB 2.0 and Firewire IEEE 1394

Size and Weight: 12" wide past xviii.7"deep by 5.3" alpine. 14.8 pounds.

Hardware Clay Removal

ICE dirt and scratch removal for film (except in 8 x 10" size)

ICE clay, scratch, tear and curve removal for prints

Software

The included software is the divergence between the 2 versions. Both the 4990 Photo ($449) and 4990 PRO ($599) include Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0, ABBYY FineReader Dart Optical Character Recognition software and EPSON Browse with Easy Photo Fix, the bones scanning software. Additionally each version includes:

Epson Perfection 4990 PHOTO ($449)
· LaserSoft Imaging SilverFast SE half dozen (more complex scanning software if the other basic software alone isn't enough for you)

Epson Perfection 4990 PRO ($599)
· MonacoEZcolor 2.5, the important color calibration software and targets
· LaserSoft Imaging SilverFast Ai 6 (much more circuitous scanning software if the basic software lone isn't enough for you)
· ArcSoft PhotoStudio, ArcSoft PhotoBase and ArcSoft Panorama Maker

Functioning

Installation

Installation is trivial. Put the CD in your drive and go along clicking OK. Even amend, it automatically installed the plug in for directly scanning into Photoshop CS2, which is how I prefer to use it. I'm on Mac Bone 10.3.9.

Similar most good installations, it took me longer to read the directions than only to plug information technology in and get. The directions, which I followed, are very picky that you only unlock the carriage and plug in the transparency top simply after you install the software. I have no thought why, and I didn't endeavor doing it the wrong way just to see.

Not but did it automatically install itself equally a Photoshop plugin (accessed via FILE > IMPORT > EPSON 4990), information technology did this for all my Photoshop versions (7, CS and CS2) on my Mac simultaneously!

Interface

I employ the Firewire connection with my 800 MHz / 1GB RAM 12" Apple Mac iBook laptop, my primary car on which I practice all my work today. The USB 2 connectedness ought to work besides.

Sadly in that location is but one Firewire (IEEE 1394) connexion on the scanner. That's neat if you have no other Firewire devices or plenty of connections on your estimator. Personally all my other Firewire devices take Ii firewire connections each, so information technology's footling to utilize just one Firewire connection at the computer and so string the connection from device to device. Personally I take a couple of external hard drives, a CD burner, a DVD/CD burner, a Microtek 1800f and Minolta Multi PRO scanners all plugged into one firewire connexion this way. They all work nifty together even doing things like copying or burning from one drive to another at the same time.

Every device I use except this EPSON 4990 has two connections making it easy to share. Information technology's unfortunate that this EPSON only has ane connection, which means it rudely has to be continued at the cease of the line, and makes it incommunicable for me to connect any other device likewise rude plenty to take only i Firewire connection at the same time.

Mechanical Construction Quality

It's exactly what I expect from Epson: it's very well made and expertly packed. Yes, it has a lot of plastic, and it'due south extremely well made and precise plastic.

Made in Indonesia, a great surfing area.

Oddly I come across some haze on the inside of the bottom glass, inside the scanner.

Mechanical Design

The peak encompass is only held upwardly by friction. This means information technology tin fall downwardly when left open up, and besides ways that it may not choose to maintain whatsoever force on flat fine art beingness scanned. For flat art you might want to put a heavy book on it.

Aural Noise

Information technology's the quietest scanner I've ever used. It's almost too tranquillity. Scanning is a very transmission and involved process, so I like to be able to hear what information technology's doing and so I know when it's done. It makes the about delicate and precise, soft sounds as information technology scans. I take to mind carefully on my desk-bound. I can't hear information technology beyond the room like my other scanners.

Software

I got Epson Browse ii.61A with the scanner and use that to browse directly into Photoshop CS2 via FILE > IMPORT > EPSON 4990. This option installed automatically with the standard installation.

Scan QUALITY

Note: I clock browse time from when I hit the SCAN push button until the paradigm pops up in Photoshop. It doesn't include the time taken by the Photoshop plugin to open up or the fourth dimension for the preview browse and for me to select the settings. I'1000 using a Firewire connection to my 800 MHz Apple G4 12" iBook laptop with 1.1 GB RAM and Bone 10.three.9. I'm likewise running several other programs while the scanner runs in the background. I'grand scanning as a plugin to Photoshop CS2. I have Photoshop fix to use only 50% of bachelor retentiveness, which works out to be well-nigh 350 MB of existent memory and 630MB of virtual memory. Therefore if y'all have a hotter computer fix to exercise nothing but browse you'll probably go faster times. I accept other work to do on my calculator while it scans.

Flat Art

Flat art, always easy to scan fifty-fifty on a $thirty scanner, scans bully.

It scans fast and well. I tin can't really say annihilation meliorate about it, information technology works neat for scanning prints.

Pushed to the insane limit of 4800 DPI it gets a little soft, just realize the only apartment art scanned at 4800 DPI would be for very special purposes, similar forgery of intaglio printed stock certificates, which are obsolete anyway. Hither you tin see a segment of a U.s.a. $20 bill at 1600 DPI, which y'all tin compare to the scan I got from the 1600 DPI EPSON 1640 here. The scan from the 1640 was done at its native 1600 DPI. The 4990 has no direct 1600 DPI setting, so I scanned at 4800 DPI, applied some USM and resized to 1600 DPI for comparison. The USM gave an unfair reward to the 4990, but tough.

Oddly these were scanned from unlike $20 bills four years autonomously, however each bill has similar wear. Curious. I had to revert to Photoshop 7, since the U.s.a. Treasury gets notified when y'all utilise CS or CS2 to practice the same thing, and unless yous have clearance y'all actually get a warning box that prevents you from continuing! Anyway, whatever scanner has more than plenty resolution for prints, which normally are scanned at non more than 300 DPI.

The default USM at 300 DPI looks insanely sharp. At 600 DPI it likewise looks great. At college resolutions it's amend to scan without USM and add together it later, since the default USM is it too great a radius for my taste.

For scanning other people's copyrighted items, like magazines and manuals, it seems a piffling less good than my EPSON 1640 since it seems to be more sensitive to wrinkles and folds. The folds that popular up away from the scanning bed get darker than other scanners as the material gets further away from the low-cal. I was hoping Ice would accost this. It doesn't. To accost this you'll want to try to put weight on the summit or something to put more force per unit area on flattening the original. You shouldn't be scanning printed material unless yous created information technology, anyhow.

Ice with flat art

I'd laissez passer on Ice for scanning apartment art.

Don't use ICE when scanning ordinary tedious document paper or currency. The rough surfaces of these papers drives Ice bananas and it completely blurs and obliterates your browse. This was in normal mode; I didn't dare effort heavy style.

I was hoping ICE would solve my most common event with scanning documents, which is fixing minor folds and unevenness. Nope, all Ice does with regular dull newspaper is completely obliterate the document. Lamentable.

For scanning glossy prints it took forever to scan a impress with Water ice and didn't practise much to set my near common flaw: dust. The manual says it'southward not actually supposed to make clean grit. I accept to try information technology with the DUST choice checked and volition let you know.

Oddly i gets a "scanner is warming up" notice after the scan is made. I doubtable it may be a misnomer, and actually is the computer doing the math behind Water ice.

Browse Times

It tells you lot, in EPSON Scan's progress bar, how much time is remaining.

A preview of the entire scanner bed takes 10 seconds.

A 4x6" print at 300 DPI takes 21 seconds. Information technology takes two minutes longer, ii:18, with Ice. This is from hitting the Browse button after preview and cropping to when the paradigm is open and ready to edit in Photoshop.

A printed page (8 ten x.v") takes 17 seconds to scan at 96 DPI.

Color Negatives

My first try with colour negatives looked Dandy! My peeve with all negative film is that the colors, when scanned or printed, are e'er arbitrary. At that place is no standard, other than your eye, to get information technology correct. Thankfully the scans I tried were right on, a first in my feel scanning negatives. Your results will probably vary with subject area and picture show type.

The preview browse takes a long fourth dimension. Then magic happens: it automatically comes upward with thumbnails for each and every i of your negatives! Make your selections for each, hitting the all button and information technology kickoff scanning. The magic happens when you select "Thumbnails" as the preview way with the little upwards/downwards arrow button next to the preview button.

Oddly it chose prototype areas of 35.64 ten 21.51 mm for each negative.

Grab: After information technology dropped the first image into Photoshop it needed me to click on the grayed-out progress bar to go it going on the adjacent scan. Oddlier still after the 2nd image it got started on the third all by itself. Oddness continues since it got hung upwardly after scanning iii images. Information technology returned to the prescan panels. I had to click Shut which then returned me to Photoshop and my fix-to-edit images.

Colour Slides and Transparencies

Preview takes 30 seconds to cover the unabridged scanning bed. Marking your image and striking zoom. 25 seconds later you have just your paradigm in the preview (OK, zoom) window.

Scan TIMES

35 mm Slides

I threw up 5 slides on the viii slide holder. I hit PREVIEW and information technology automatically identified which five slots had slides and automatically cropped to them. I hit Scan and information technology started scanning them all. In 35 minutes I had five 2400 DPI scans, with ICE, open in PhotoShop fix for me to edit.

Really the auto crop wasn't always perfect. Next time I'll be sure to right whatever on the preview start.

This is fantastic! vii minutes per slide is nearly right at high resolution and with ICE. Scanners ever print specifications at lower resolutions and without Water ice, which run much faster. I usually budget 10 minutes per scan, then seven is bang-up.

Yo may need a high horsepower computer to have all these open up themselves at loftier resolution (350 MB per epitome). it used up all of my 8 GB of RAM in my Mac for PhotoShop'due south scratch space.

half-dozen x 7 cm transparency, 800 DPI:
(actually scanned somewhat more than than the actual image surface area)

51 seconds, no ICE. (My Minolta Multi PRO took v minutes, much slower)

8 minutes and 28 seconds with Ice.

6x7 cm transparency, 2400 DPI:
(actually scanned somewhat more than the bodily epitome area)

ii minutes, 52 seconds, no ICE.

One hour, 38 minutes with ICE. The estimate by the software was nineteen minutes and eventually increased afterward the actual scan. The scan was about ten minutes and the balance seems to accept been number crunching. (My Minolta Multi PRO took 11 minutes, 15 seconds, much, much faster)

6 ten ix cm transparency, 1200 DPI

One Minute, USM, no Ice

6 x 12 cm transparency, 800 DPI

53 seconds, no Water ice, USM OFF

half-dozen x 12 cm transparency, 2400 DPI

5 minutes, xl seconds no Ice. (3:27 or 3:xviii with USM OFF)

iv x 5" Transparency, 1200 DPI

1 minute, 48 seconds, no ICE

ICE

Ice works magnificently well. Information technology removes none of the prototype; just the dust. This is better than my stock Minolta Multi PRO at lower resolutions like 800 DPI. The Minolta requires the Scanhancer for Ice to piece of work well at low resolutions. On the other hand, the Minolta is much faster.

DMax

Hallelujah! It sees right into the darkest black of a Velvia fifty border and conspicuously distinguishes between black of the Velvia border and the opaque plastic film holder frame. This is extraordinary; I can't recall my Multi-PRO being able to do this. Yes, it'due south a bit noisy at d=iv.0 if y'all lighten it enough to see and sharpen at 1,000% @ r=0.3. If that bothers you then I'd suggest using the included Silverfast software for multiple laissez passer scanning. I'm happy plenty with the results non to want to bother with installing more than software, but will somewhen endeavour it and let you know.

Recommendations

This review is from 2005. The 4990 is an first-class scanner regardless of yr, however if buying a scanner today, I'd look at the current Epson V700, V750 and V500 instead.

The 4990 scans everything well. If I but was immune one scanner this could exist it. Of course your needs volition differ; I shoot large format film. 2008's Epson V700 and V750 browse big format besides as medium format and 35mm. 2008'south V500 scans simply 35mm and medium format. They all have digital Water ice automatic dirt removal.

If you lot only need to browse 35 mm movie or prints and then see my recommendations here. You might exist able to get a amend scanner for 35 mm film for less coin.