HP has released two scanners with new photo restoration tools. The six-colour, 96-bit scanners are promising users the chance to, ?turn all your treasured photos, slides and film into detailed, fully restored digital copies.?

The HP Scanjet G4010 (£129) and HP Scanjet G4050 (£199) photo scanners feature new HP technology that splits the image into six colours ? red, orange, yellow, green, cyan and blue ? which the manufacturer says gives richer, truer photos than industry-standard three-colour scanners.

Each of the six colours is sampled at 16 bits per pixel, resulting in more detailed 96-bit images with a top resolution of 4800 x 9600dpi. The scanners also feature HP?s Real Life Technologies that can correct flaws such red eye, restore faded colour and bring out the detail in dark corners using an ?Adaptive Lighting? feature.

For those needing to retain quality detail at high resolutions, HP Adaptive Sharpening is an algorithm developed by HP Labs, and new to the HP Scanjet G4010 and G4050. Previously, the sharpening algorithm would only take into account the sharpness of the scanner. Now, the algorithm also takes into account the resolution of the scan, which promises notable sharpness improvements when scanning at high resolutions.

The scanners come with dust and scratch removal built into the hardware, which aims to automatically eliminate defects before the images are created. The technology works by scanning in two passes, one with the standard lamp (CCFL) on to collect information about the image, one with an IR LED which creates a map of areas that are defects (dust/scratches), which are then removed.

Both scanners are optimised to scan legacy Kodachrome slides ? the standard for slide film developed by Kodak in 1916-1930 ? as well as Ektachrome film developed in 1958. In addition, the G4050 features a ‘full-bed’ Transparent Materials Adapter (TMA) for scanning film, the ability to scan sixteen 35mm slides and thirty 35mm negative frames plus two medium-format film frames and one 10x13cm (4×5-inch) film frame.

Four simple buttons – Scan, Scan Film, Copy, Scan to PDF – automate simple tasks on both scanners.

Key features and benefits at a glance
6-colour/96-bit scanning and 4800 x 9600 dpi resolution
Restore old or damaged photos, slides and negatives with HP Real Life technologies.
The HP Scanjet G4010 takes five 35 mm slides or six negative frames at once, using a built-in TMA.
The HP Scanjet G4050 can scan stacks of film using a built-in adapter that holds up to sixteen 35mm slides or thirty 35mm negative frames at once.
Quickly scan up to four 10×15-cm (4 x 6-inch) photos, and automatically save them as individual files without the need to crop and resize.
Produce scans of various paper sizes and 3D objects with a letter-size, portrait-oriented scanning bed and adjustable lid.
Four front-panel task buttons for making reprints, copying documents and saving images to PDF at the touch of a button.
Organise, edit, share and save scans in one click with HP Photosmart software and HP Photosmart Share.
The HP Scanjet G4010 and G4050 are optimised to scan legacy Kodachrome and Ektachrome slide film.
Support for Windows Vista will be added in 2007 after Vista becomes available.
Save energy – Energy Star ?07 compliant.

More information is available at www.hp.co.uk

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