Epson Scanners?

Sterling,

The 2400 has twice the resolution of the 1260. So, no, the quality will not be identical for both. However, if you are mainly interested in scanning slides and negatives you might want to look into scanners designed to be used only for film.

It all comes down to whether or not you are satisfied with what you are getting from your present setup. If you are happy with the results, why switch.

Robert:

Thanks for the information. In working with my 1260, I find that as I scan old family photos, I don’t need all the resolution that the 1260 can create, so it is doing a surperb job in that regard.

I’ll check into the scanner for negatives only, since I’m not having any luck in using the 1260 for that purpose. The "invert" feature of Adobe Photoshop Elements renders a pale blue image when i try and turn the negative into a positve. I gather that the scanner you mentioned will render a much better looking positive than what I am able to produce.

Thanks again.

On Fri, 12 Sep 2003 06:25:50 -0700, "Sterling Brooks" wrote:

I have an Epson 1260 scanner that I like. I have an opportunity to purchase an Epson 2400 PHOTO. I’m under the impression that the 1260 will do everything the 2400 will do. mainly, I’m interested in scanning color nagatives and slides, and I think the quality would be identical with each scanner. Am I right?

Thanks for you help.

S.B.

Three weeks ago – I bought the Epson 2400 (on sale at the time at Staples with a $30 rebate, wasn’t all too bad).

After years of using HP scanners – I found this one better, and faster for paper prints.

The reason I got it rather than one with a lower resoluition was the need for high resolution for Negative Scanning.

My experience with scanning film negatives now on the Epson 2400 – Not Good !!!

First, it is incerdibly slow on the 2400 resolution.
Scond – the colors I get are really off… – all of them. Third – if you play with these higher resolutions you ought to use the USB 2.0 I/O of the scanner, but that speeds up only the transmission of the captured data, not the scanning itself.

I stopped wasting my time with films on this Epson 2400, and when the merjet will offer a better film scanning device, I will get back to this process. Menwhile the EPSON 2400 is not a good solution for film scanning.

ZR

Sterling,
Robert gives good advice on getting a dedicated film scanner. However, even with the 2400 flatbed, the Epson driver will do the conversion from negative to positive for you ( so you won’t have to invert in Elements ) . I have the Epson 2400 and I’m satisfied with its results on the few negatives I scan . A dedicated film scanner will be much faster, though, with better resolution. Those are big plusses when you have a lot to scan.

🙂

Brent
[edit]
Minolta dualscan IIi is $279, refurbed at the Minolta website. "The Dimâge Scan Dual II offers first time users as well as advanced users an economical and versatile way to scan 35mm and Advanced Photo System film. This scanner combines three main features: simple USB connectivity, easy scanning operation and high-quality images. The Dimâge Scan Dual II is capable of scanning at a Maximum resolution of 2,820 dpi. This combined with a 12-bit A/D conversion, Minolta’s Color Matching System and precision autofocus makes this unit an ideal choice for anyone looking for a high-quality, affordable scanner.

The Dimâge Scan Dual II comes with the following items: – Dimâge Scan Dual II Film Scanner
– 35 mm film holder FH-U1
– Slide mount holder SH-U1
– USB cable UC-1
– AC Adapter AC-U1
– Instruction Manual
– Control Software for Windows 98, Windows 2000
– Control Software for Macintosh OS 8.6 or higher
– 6 month USA limited warranty
Our Price: $279.00
Availability: In Stock"

Brent:

Thanks so much for your prompt assistance. I now have both a 2400 and a 1260 scanner here on the desk. I’m not having a lot of luck making a decent quality image from a color negative. On each scanner, using Adobe PhotoShop Elements 2, the image has a nasty blue tent when I try using the "INVERT" feature in Adobe.

I can’t really justify the additional expense of a dedicated "film scanner" since I only will be scanning several dozen negatives for my geneology project.

How were you able to get good results with the color on your 2400 when you scanned color negatives?

Thanks
Sterling

Sterling,
Under "document source" in the Epson Twain driver, use "TPU: Color negative film". TPU stands for "transparency unit". The driver will "auto invert", and you’ll have a much better image to work with.

🙂
Brent

BRENT:

Thanks again. I probably need to go down to I-Hop and buy you a nice gift certificate for your help in this matter.
The I-Hop people know me and my wife very well…

Regards,
Sterling

Just keep dropping by, Sterling. Beth Haney , JoeHenry, and I are all genealogy diggers on this forum and we need some allies, with all the artists around <G> .

🙂

Brent

Mmmmmm….IHOP! Swedish pancakes with lingonberries and lingonberry butter!!!

YEAH!

I’m having such a grand time scanning thousands of documents and photos from my family that go back to Scotland in the 1600s. I have to confess, that I was not instrumental in this project, I’m just keeping the Epson scanners very warm as I archive everything.

My dad’s cousin did all the footwork and now that she is 82 (my dad is a spry 84 year old who still drives a motorhome all over— not to worry— he drives better than most 20 year olds BTW—) she doesn’t have a good grasp on what all this technology can do in order to preserve the hard work she has done over the past 30+ years.

I feel compelled to archive all the tin-types, photos, negatives and documents because so much info can be lost so easily. My cousins will get a really nice Christmas present in the form of several CDs (if I don’t go insane from sitting behind 3 PowwerMac computers and Epson scanners.)

I’ll keep an eye on this discussion board. It has been a great learning experience for this old pilot and I very much appreciate the guidance from all who have taken the time to post a reply.

Sterling,
If you are interested in why you were getting that blue cast to your scans, there was a thread I read today about scanning negatives. Negatives have an orange cast to them, so when you invert them in photoshop that orange cast becomes blue. You can use adjustment techniques to correct for that cast, but scanners designed for negative film will invert and correct the native orange color cast automatically.

Welcome, Sterling! And will I be "seeing" you on the Reunion discussion list, too?!

Beth:

I purchased Reunion 8 for my Powermac a few weeks ago but I haven’t yet had the opportunity to start the software yet. With thousands of documents and pictures to go in the scanning process, I’ll have to wait until I get further along until I get into the Reunion 8.

R8 looks like a great program I might add.

Sterling

Sterling, i just got to know something, is that your real name ?

sorry to go off the rockin epson scanner topic

Sterling Brooks

I’m having such a grand time scanning thousands of documents and photos from my family that go back to Scotland in the 1600s.

Sterling you’re a glutton for punishment. I like to read my families old documents and look at the old pictures but scanning them in is getting really old! I’ve got an Epson 1250 which evolved into your 1260 and it’s just soooooooo slow. I’m still trying to talk my wife into letting me buy one of those Minolta scanners Brent recommended as I have thousands of slides that I’d like to get into my genealogy "project". Oh well,it’s a labor of love and someday my great, great grand kids will thank me, right?

😉

Joe

Joe:

Yes, I hope your great grandkids will see the treasure that you saved for them. In my case, I’m doing and I don’t even have any children!

My line of the Brooks family has come to a dead end. Even though there were 6 kids in my fathers family (he had 2 other brothers) my only male out of this group cousin have done a terrible job at not producing kiddos.

I suspect I’m doing this out of guilt so the family name will be remembered. We came all this way from Scotland in the 1600s and this is the end of the road. Like that Scottish song, "you take the high road and I’ll take the low road…" and neither one made it to the end!

Well, at least my female cousins who had bambinos will have something to pass down to their kids. I think they should buy me lunch…

Brent:

I tried this, but when I go from "flatbed" to "TPU: Color negative film", I get a message that says "REMOVE THE REFLECTIVE DOCUMENT MAT AND MAKE SURE THE FILM IS POSITIONED CORRECTLY." I have the option to click on "OK" and when I do, the "SCAN" feature becomes unhighlighted and I no longer am afforded the option of actually getting to scan my negatives.

While the 2400 Photo is much faster than my 1260, I’m still at square one in scanning negatives. Guess I’ll just have to explore the option of the Minolta film scanner for $279.

Well, Sterling,
That’s a TWAIN driver problem, or a conflict. "Scan" is not supposed to be greyed out. Have you loaded the 5.71 driver from Epson? If not, download the latest driver and load it. If you are running the latest driver, I’d remove the scanner in Windows and do a full installation of it, and see if I had better luck.

🙂

Brent

Sterling:
There is no problem with your TWAIN driver. Everything is operating as designed. After you select "TPU" and receive the message about removing the mat and positioning the film (I assume you have your negs loaded into the holder, have removed the mat, and have positioned the holder on the glass (edge of holder against the plasting "frame" that holds the glass for proper alignment) so that the film resides in the center of the scanning area) you need to tell the TWAIN driver do a preview scan of the film. Above the greyed out "SCAN" button is a preview area containing two buttons, a "magnifying glass" button and a "sheet of paper button" (an icon similar to that used on copy machines). Click the "sheet of paper" button and you’ll likely get a message that the scanner is warming up. Then, the scanner will scan and then give you a thumbnail of each image on the film strip. Each thumbnail will be checked by default, meaning that, if you click the scan button at this point (it will no longer be greyed out, by the way), each image will be scanned successively. Alternately, you may deselect one or any number of images less than all, and the Epson Twain5 driver will scan only those images that remain selected (you deselect by clicking on the checks).

Elements is a great program, but the Epson Twain 5 driver provided with your scanner is also very well done. If you play around with those thumbnails, you will see that there are options to flip the image prior to scanning and some other nice toys.

Oh, and you are in for a treat once you have scanned a few images.

I don’t know if it was on this forum or elsewhere, but I participated in a discussion where a user was trying to decide between this scanner and a dedicated film scanner costing thousands more. I guess I was persistent enough in that thread that one of the posters advocating the dedicated route went out and purchased the 2400 knowing that he could return it after proving me wrong for his own edification. Shortly after, he posted back praising the unit and thanking me for saving him thousands of dollars.

I’m not so giddy as to believe that there are no advantages to be gained by investing $4000 or $5000 in a super hi-res dedicated unit, but, for most of us, planning to publish to the web or store albums on CD or print photos on printers limited to 4800 or less dpi (mostly less), unless the aim is to archive for some technology that we may be able to afford in the future, this writer is unable to take advantage of the benefits afforded by those expensive units.

I own an Epson ES300C (perhaps Epson’s first "consumer" color scanner) in addition to the 2400. I paid something like $1700 for it at CompUSA (it wasn’t called CompUSA in those early days – perhaps someone can refresh my memory). It is a dandy unit, still works perfectly, and always made great scans of photos (never had any success with negs), is limited to 600 dpi, communicates through my parallel port, and, alas, is not supported by WinXP (because of the requirement for parallel support).

I don’t remember now, what I paid for the 2400, but it was something less than $400 – well less than that, I think. The 2400 is so much more capable for so much less money.

Sorry to ramble, but I believe you will be very pleased with your new scanner and the way it works with Elements (I obtained Elements with my purchase of the 2400).

Happy scanning.

JCalloway

BTW, Sterling, I’m scanning photos from slides this morning (I haven’t succumbed to digital cams, yet – still make my images on film using SLR’s).

I usually set the Epson 2400 to scan negs at 1600 dpi, which, for me, is an acceptable balance between manageable file size and max-resolution.

You can experiment to see what works best for you on your setup. You’ll also want to play with Elements’ color correction tools. In Elements, pull down Enhance, then Color, then Color Cast and follow the prompts.

I have brought several faded, washed out old slides back to life with this tool.

If you’re scanning really old stuff, you’ll be amazed at what Elements can do to restore color, contrast, etc.

JCalloway

John,
Very nice explanation. Your investment in your early Epson scanner reminds me of how very inexpensive all the peripherals are these days . My excitement over buying 40 MB hard drives for $279 each ( and thinking they’d never fill up ), comes to mind, also.

🙂

Brent

Brent:
How right you are about peripheral pricing (and, computer pricing, as well).

I don’t feel too badly about my scanner investment. To get a much better deal, all I would have had to do is wait three or four more years . . . of course, by that time, my kids would have finished school and not really been able to take advantage of what was, for its day, absolutely leading of leading edges.

That scanner was simple to use (although excruciatingly slow when used with what was then Astral Picture Publisher), and my kids both were proficient with it. Like you, my system included to huge 40 mb drives. Of course, one scan could eat up 25 or 30 mb, and trying to manipulate the image once captured was really a chore on my Swan 210 (386/12mHz/1mb RAM, LOL).

If you wanted to use the "magic" wand to select a range of colors, you had to be careful about what you selected because the process might take a half hour or so, and, if you made a mistake, undoing would eat up another half hour (assuming, of course, that the computer didn’t bog down and simply crash, leaving you to re scan (yet another half hour or more, LOL)).

Ah, yes, those were the days. Elements can take a 1600 dpi full color photo and flip it 90 degrees in five seconds or so. You could have started the process in those early days and gone to bed only to return to find it still cooking the next morning. Yes, we now live in some marvelous times.

Thanks for the reply.

JCalloway

I typed my graduation theses into a Philips word processor and it took one whole floppy. I had nightmares about it worrying what would happen if I added something to the text. Would the computer delete something of importance somewhere else and would we find out in time?
We never threw any paperwork away, jsut so that we knew what the computer had deleted just to accommodate the new text added.

Aahhh, those good old days.

Robert

I typed mine on a typewriter. 🙁

I have tried to scan B&W negatives with my Epson 2400.

The resulting pictures trabsfered to PE-2 from the EPSON Application are very grainy (on the monitor). That despite scanning at 2400 dpi.

What am I doing wrong ?

ZR

John… In the words of Gomer Pyle, Thank ya, thank ya, thank ya, thank ya.

My Epson 2400 is doing things I never dreamed of, thanks to your tips.

I bought this scanner for $60.00 at Sam’s Club. It was their display model and didn’t come with any instructions, except everything else was available.

My negatives scanned perfectly and the color reproduction is outstanding. Man, am I impressed and all this for $60. It sure bet spending mega $$$ on a dedicated film scanner only.

And this scanner is much faster than my 1260.

Thanks again for the info, I never would have figured this out on my own. I can fly an airplane at night in a thunderstorm by myself, but scanning (as we say in Texas) is a whole-nuther ballgame.

Sterling:

Glad my tips worked for you. You aren’t missing too much by not having the manual, and, if you by aspirin with just half the money you saved on your purchase, you’ll be able to cope with plenty-a-headache for whatever you are missing.

I’d send you my manual, but don’t know where it is.

The only reason I was able to figure out the Twain interface is because it is similar in layout to the one that works with my old Epson ES300C.

Happy scanning.

JC

Has anyone here used the Epson Expression 1680? I just acquired one on ebay for $356.

My negatives scanned perfectly and the color reproduction is outstanding. Man, am I impressed and all this for $60. It sure bet spending mega $$$ on a dedicated film scanner only

Sterling,
I’m glad the Epson flatbed worked out for you, but just to give you another view…I was faced with scanning thousands of 35mm slides and negatives. I bought the earlier version of the Minolta film scanner that Brent mentioned, The Minolta Dimage Dual Scan II. I also have an HP 5470c flatbed, which I was using for scanning slides and negs. It comes with an external adapter for that purpose. The 5470 is a very fine flatbed scanner, in my opinion, but it is not meant for scanning film. It is slow, and the maximum native resolution is 1200 dpi. The Minolta is 2820 dpi, and it is much faster and easier to use, plus the dynamic range is better…blacks are truly black.
I paid $250 for the Minolta, brand new, from buy.com. Not exactly mega$$$. I am so glad I bought the dedicated film scanner. I have scanned almost 3000 slides and a lot of film, both color and B&W. Like you, I am working on a family photo archive. The scan quality, speed and ease of use of the Minolta are just outstanding. I would never go back to scanning film with a flatbed.
Bert

I have an iMav OS 10.2.6 .I have Elements 2 and an Epson 1200 scanner. In elements I do not get Twain as a source. I am properly connected . Please help.

Jule, is the plug-in in Applications>Elements>Plug-ins>import/export? If so, did you install Elements after you installed your scanner driver? You may need to reinstall the driver if so.

Or, check out the Epson site. I don’t happen to see drivers for Epson 1200 listed under the models with OS X support. But I’m not real good at this, so try Barbara’s suggestion first, because she’s probably right.

< http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/support/supAdvice.jsp?BV_ UseBVCookie=yes&noteoid=17764>

Hmm, you may be right, Beth. I don’t know for sure that the 1200 is supported.

Hi, Beth. Just checked the apple site. No built-in support (image capture) but there should be a driver for X.