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The Epson Perfection 2450 Photo Scanner
by David Feign, NOCCC - July 08, 19102 at 18:18:47:
After looking at various scanners that I could use for converting my thousands of negatives to digital form, I selected the Epson Perfection 2450 Photo Scanner as having the specs most likely to meet my requirements with a reasonable price. I am still in the process of evaluating it, but certain features stand out enough for me to write something about it before it becomes obsolete.The scanner does a beautiful job. It has resolution up to 2400 X 4800 ppi. It also can interpolate to give a higher resolution, but that just makes larger files without really carrying any more information. It will provide 42-bit color depth which is nice for very thin negatives. PhotoShop, which I use for all my picture processing., will handle this color depth and then convert it to 24-bit color for printing.
The nicest thing about it is that the transparency window is 4" X 9" which will allow me to scan up to 18 35 mm. full frames strips at a time or 8 - 2" X 2" mounted slides. It will also handle my other size negatives up to 4" X 5" as well as sizes in between. A problem is that the 35 mm. film carriers provided allow for only 12 - 35 mm. frames or 4 - 2" X 2" mounted slides. And the larger film carriers provide for only one 4" X 5" and one 2-1/4" X 3-1/4" negative. To really take advantage of the 4" X 9" area I’ll have to make my own carriers. Putting the film right on the galls plate probably won’t work because the carriers are designed to keep the film about a millimeter off the surface which is what the cardboard mounts for the mounted slides do.
The main problems I encountered were software problems. The TWAIN driver provided with the scanner doesn’t allow me to scan more than one 35 mm. frame at a time at the maximum resolution. When I try to do more than one at a time, the software complains that there is not enough disk space. In fact, when I finish scanning one frame, I have to turn PhotoShop off and restart it to get the second frame. There may be a way around that (there certainly should be) but the pamphlet they provide instead of a real manual doesn’t mention that as one of the problems to be solved.
Fortunately, Epson provides some other software to replace their TWAIN driver. It is called "SilverFast". It allows me to scan the whole 4" X 9" area at once. It also provides a great deal of control of the color, density and contrast settings for the scan. This is very nice if all the negatives or slides are of the same density, contrast and color balance. If the negatives in a strip vary greatly in these respects, we are reduced to scanning only the adjacent negatives that are within a small range of these parameters. The scanner zips along quite fast at the low resolutions. At the 2400 ppi resolution the scan takes a bit over 4 minutes per frame. So for "mass production" purposes you’d better have something else to do while you are scanning many film strips. I generally have a meal or get a good night’s sleep between sessions when scanning lots of pictures.
Within the limitations mentioned above, the scanner does a very good job of converting old film to digital form. The colors are quite nice and, for most pictures, very little PhotoShop processing is required other than cropping, rotating, and spotting the pictures. If the full frame is what you want, the processing goes very fast if you take advantage of the controls offered by "SilverFast".
I am still experimenting with my scanner and if anyone is interested in more details as I learn more, you can E-Mail me.
The scanner is available at most computer stores. The price is remarkably uniform among the stores, varying between $399.95 and $399.99.
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