Epson Perfection 4870 Flatbed Scanner

Epson Perfection 4870 Photo

March 30, 2004

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• Reviewed by: artperling

  Strengths: very good hardware

  Weaknesses: software "Epson Scan" is not good as it should be, user manual is realy not good

  Overall: hopefully Epson will provide the update of EpsonScan (V.2)soon , and make supplement of the User Manual. By use of the highest resolution (4800)for film scan, the result is really outstanding, obviously better than the results obtained by my old dedicated film scanner Minolta Dimage Scan Speed 2800.

• Reviewed by: gevork

  Strengths: Fast, noiseless, with Firewire connection works flawlessly

  Weaknesses: little heavy, takes one minute to scan one frame in a negative, sometimes stocks, breaks connection when using USB connection

  Overall: I was looking for a scanner which can scan negatives. I was very impressed when I got the results. Superb quality. I have old amateur made black & white negatives, some dark some light, but Epson adjusted to every frame automatically. I don't recomment to use Digital ICE technology since it gets rid off all scratches by smoothing the picture which can cause some damage to details.

• Reviewed by: Akhbar

  Strengths: Scanning TWAIN software, speed, other bundled software

  Weaknesses: None

  Overall: Compared HP and Umax scanners to this one - the Epson 4870 has a much better scanning interface (the TWAIN program that actually controls the scan) than the other two. Scan settings are more easily set, like contrast, brightness, gamma, colors, etc. and the changes carry-over to the next scan. HP does not allow much parameter setting (dpi? B&W vs. grayscale vs. color?) and even those few changes need to be redone with each new scan. Even the scan window size seems to revert back to the default with a new scan.I do a lot of document scanning with all sizes, shapes and qualities of documents - ADFs aren't really helpful - and I have found the Epsons I have used (the 4870 as well as other older professional models) give me much less grief than other scanners.The PC World review knocked down the Espon 4870 for being slower than the HP. For my humble document work, the total scan time was much less with the Epson ... scanning per se was about the same (though I did not use a stopwatch) but the work to select the right scan area, set the brightness, etc. with the 4870 was much quicker and less frustrating than with the HP models I have used.Happy scanning ...

• Reviewed by: tnolan

  Strengths: Ease of Setup. Ease of Use.

  Weaknesses: None

  Overall: Immediately scanned text, photos & slides. No problem. Works great with Photoshop Elements & Omnipage Pro 14.0 I would highly recommend it to serious users.

• Reviewed by: zoneone

  Strengths: Great quality scans with an efficiant interface.

  Weaknesses: Sometimes does not do what you tell it to

  Overall: As a profesional photographer for many years I have used many scanners to get my images into the computer but none as great as this one. I have started rescanning Every thing from the negative. I have been finding great images I did not have time to print in the darkroom and will now have. It does a great colour conversion from a colour neg and has a dmax of 3.8.The neg holders are completely redesigned from the 2450. They are much better made and more efficient.It works fast, does batch scanning with customizable multiple selections. But only if you do not have ICE turned on which I find often takes out important details from some images.It often does not scan in 48bit when I ask it but I honestly cannot tell the difference from the 24bit scans. It sometimes makes a blank scan, maybe one in thirty. Sometimes Photoshop will tell me the scanner is not connected properly and I have to quit and reopen the prgram and it works fine. None of these problems make me feel the need to take away my 5 star rating. I am apopolepticly happy with this scanner.