Review of the Epson Perfection 4490 Photo

Price £199 www.epson.co.uk Scanner type: Conventional moving lens and sensor Maximum scan resolution: 4800x9400ppi Film handling: 35mm strip film 12 frames, 35mm mounted slides 4 frames, medium format (6 x 12cm) 1 frame Hardware dust and scratch removal: Digital ICE Connectity: USB 2.0 High-Speed Other features: Moving transparency illuminator, Epson Creativity suite, PIM II, Photoshop Elements Straight out of the box the Epson Perfection 4490 Photo gives an impression of high quality. Switch it on and it purrs. Some of that purring comes from a secondary motor that drives the moving transparency illuminator in the lid. Although not as generous as the HP Scanjet 4890, you can batch scan up to 12 35mm film strip frames or four mounted slides and you don't need to wait an age for the results; just a minute for 2400ppi scans, plus the scans are of good quality for a flat bed. Print scans are also very good, with no hint of over-saturation, plus good sharpness. Maybe the scans err on the dark side, but that's better than being too light. Is there a black mark to speak of, well, yes, unfortunately. Digital ICE dust and scratch removal is featured and, especially so with negative scans, we found that the system left its mark rather too blatantly. It can also quadruple scan times. Indeed, if I owned this scanner, I'd probably not use this feature. Apart from that, the 4490Photo gets a thumbs up.