Customer Reviews

Epson Perfection 2400 Photo Scanner

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I've used scanners for ten years and I am here to tell you that the Epson 2400 Photo laps the competition and leaves them in the dust.

The setup of this solidly constructed scanner onto my Windows 2000 went without a hitch. Most problems associated with scanner setups trace back to a failure to read and follow instructions, so I used care to read through everything before beginning!

With that completed, I followed instructions in the automated Epson TWAIN 5 and quickly got a perfect photo scan 300 DPI. The buttons on the front worked well, sending respective scans to printer, e-mail and web. I kept grabbing for the mouse, expecting to be called to do something, but everything was automated. I placed 6 photos on the glass, leaving room between them, and the TWAIN identified and segregated each into its own file perfectly.

I got this scanner to handle my collection of slides, so that was a very important feature for me. Removal of the laminated lid-liner exposes the TPU light. The liner pops in and out nicely. The beautifully designed slide/negative holder lies on the glass, indexing precisely. This combination of engineering elegance illustrates a sufficiency few engineers seem to grasp. "Keep it simple, stupid". It holds 4 slides or a strip of up to 6 negatives. I was absolutely impressed with the design and efficiency thus far! The slides simply drop within their frame onto the glass and are retrieved effortlessly. With another very slick demonstration of engineering wizardry, negative filmstrips slide smoothly and effortlessly into the other side of the frame, and are positioned precisely and uniformly above the glass with no bends.

It seemed too easy, but in only 42 seconds, the scanner automatically recognized the color positives, lit the TPU lamp, pre-scanned all four slides, and left thumbnails before me to select from. What an encouraging start!

NOTE: One reviewer is ENTIRELY mistaken when he incorrectly stated that all four slides must be scanned. Quite to the contrary, a check box adjacent to each thumbnail permits any of them to be unselected. What he thought those check marks meant can only be imagined and testifies that some people are best left in a locked room with no sharp objects for their own safety.

Operating with only USB-1 on my machine, the 2400 Photo scanned each slide in 54 seconds, which I considered to be quite acceptable. Not only were the results stunning, they appeared perfect, with no hotspots, off colors, or degradation of sharpness. It delivered absolutely perfect reproduction, with precise cropping, too.

However, I wanted greater resolution than the default 300 DPI. While 300 DPI is fine for printing slides, I desire to archive slides for viewing on the giant-size screens of the future and wanted to take advantage of the 2400 DPI capability of the unit.

Access is easily gained to the inner sanctum of Epson TWAIN 5 by clicking a button during the 15-second warm-up phase. Within is an almost unlimited array of options. 2400 DPI from a slide generated a large 17.1 meg file to deal with, which can either be saved in it's bulky Windows Bitmap version, or as a more manageable 1.1 meg JPEG file, no loss of image data.

Expecting a more time-consuming project, I instead found that speed was mysteriously unaffected. In fact, because pre-scanning of subsequent items can be bypassed in manual mode, four slides were completed at 2400 magnificent DPI from a cold start in exactly 3:50 minutes; a full 70 seconds faster than the same number in auto mode. Adopting a rhythm, I scanned 63 slides in one hour, which I thought to be a fabulous rate. Any number of slides can be scanned before you close the TWAIN and "finish" them, at which time you can rename if you desire, de-select unwanted photos, select the final format and determine the target directory of choice. Having said that, I would recommend investing your time wisely and save them periodically, should a crash or other Windows frustration occur, causing all your dedicated effort to vanish. About 40 slides is my emotional limit.

Filmstrip negative performance was absolutely beautiful, "exposing" the film with absolute perfection most processing labs can never achieve. The backlighting of the TPU device provides a depth and realism normally associated with transparencies, while the 2400 DPI resolution puts almost any digital camera to shame.

The supplied Adobe Photo Essentials does provide the very good essential features of its big brother Adobe Photo Shop for correcting and retouching photos. Having said that and having all three on my machine, I prefer to use JASC Paint Shop Pro. At one-sixth the cost of Photo Shop, I find PSP is slicker, with all the features of the former, with some features that Photo Shop doesn't have, like a magnification tool that zooms in and out with left and right clicks, without having to change modes.

I put the Essentials to work on a set of 140 slides of professional Ektachrome from a 1987 Norway tour, to see if I could get the same results with equal efficiency. This slide film tends to require about one f-stop longer exposure I didn't know about at the time, which left me with an entire collection of darkened photos that all needed some digital magic.

Essentials performed fine, and pulled up more light from scenes while balancing the contrast, to reveal detail and richness I had never seen before. None of my slides suffered from scratches of dust, so I had no occasion to check out this provision. After going through half the slides, I grabbed for the Paint Shop Pro again. With a less-cluttered desktop and the highly usable combined brightness/contrast tool, my wife and I took turns speeding through the remainder. PSP isn't better, it just goes easier and quicker.

I have never written a review of any product before, but felt Epson's huge success deserved credit. The Epson Perfection 2400 Photo and TWAIN software are a combination that gives remarkable and satisfying results.

PROS: I needed a cheap scanner that will let me scan old 35mm slides. At the same time, I didn't want to buy just a photo scanner which had no use after my personal project. I was very impressed with the quality and didn't need to use higher resolution then 1200 which is about 2Meg file size. I also had some old color positives and black and white negatives which I was able to convert into digital images. Great for multipurpose.

CONS: I scanned about 400+ 35mm slides and notice that the software is a little buggy.
1. Sometimes after a scan when I would go to switch to the save/view window, the window would not popup and I had to scan again.
2. After scanning multiple slides about 50 I went to save them and got a "not enough disc space error". I didn't have the option to make space, it just exited out and I lost all my work.
3. Sometimes scanning a few slides it wouldn't properly align the borders. I had to rescan or scan one by one.

I've been tremendously happy with the quality of the scans from the Perfection 2400. If all you need to do is make 640x480 scans for the www from prints you made at the local 1-hour, this is more scanner than you'll ever need.

However, scan resolution is sufficient to make brilliant 8x10 prints from 35mm negatives/slides. The included Epson software leaves a little to be desired -- it won't, for example, install on an alternative partition on your disk. Also, you will certainly have to use a photo manipulation application to tweak the levels and colour curves before you get your pictures right. But spend a little time to learn how your scanner works, and you'll have smashing pictures in a short time.

If you're adept at working image manipulation programs (Photoshop Elements 1.1 (not the new 2.0) is included with this product; but I have been happier with the freely available GIMP), you'll have professional scans at a fraction of what it used to cost not so long ago.

I wanted to scan a large number of slides, specifically some slides for my mom for her for a christmas gift. I did extensive investigation into several scanners, including a scanner that was exclusively a slide and negative film scanner. I ended up choosing this Epson model and I have been extremely happy with it. It is very easy to use. On the manual setting, you can preview the slides and then alter their brightness and contrast before scanning them. I've set the image quality merely to 1200 dpi, and the images have come out with fantastic clarity and detail, and yet the bitmap file sizes are a reasonable 5MB (and for those folks who don't have great amounts of hard drive space available, compressed jpeg files are another option).

The scanner has done a fine job of scanning regular prints as well.

This scanner is excellent for both scanning prints/pages and film. It's also very fast compared to all the other scanners I've used.

Most people I've talked to on message boards and such told me that flatbed scanner don't do that great of a job on negative. Well, I've scanned a bunch of negatives and they look excellent. I'm sure that the increase to 2400dpi helps a ton. Most cheaper dedicated film scanners don't have that much higher of a resolution.

I've printed some 4x6, 5x7, and 8x10 prints and they look pretty darn good. I think the only problems with the prints have to do with the color and I'm sure it has to do with the old printer I'm using.

I would highly recommend the Epson 2400 to any "pro-sumer" on a budget.

I was really impressed with one scan in particular. It was a portrait that was taken outside in the snow. The original print was quite washed out and you could not see a lot of detail. But on the negative scan, I got all the detail and with a little bit of color correction, it made for a beautiful print. If I would have scanned the print instead, it would not have even come close.

I'm quite happy.

If you ever used a professional scanner, then you probably know that it is impossible to get the same results with consumer scanners. I learned this the hard way. I bought at least four different consumer scanners expecting similar results to the scans I made with my old HP professional scanner, but ended up returning them all -- the quality of the scans were far from my expectations. I recently bought Epson 2400 and decided that I am going to keep it. The major factor for my decision was of course the quality of the scans -- it was noticeably better than the other scanners in this price range. Another major factor was the software. I downloaded and installed Epson TWAIN driver for Mac OS X (it is available for download at no charge from Epson's website). Now I utilize Photoshop Elements' Import menu, and I have full control over the scan parameters, or, if I choose, I go to automatic mode and importing scans becomes as user friendly as Wawa's sandwich ordering touchscreen. Imported images might need some minor tweaking in Photoshop before they will look close to the original. The final output is not bad at all. Again, don't expect breathtaking crispy-clear results of professional scanners, but it is pretty good for a consumer product. If you are a Mac user looking for a reasonably priced scanner, give Epson 2400 a chance, you might keep it.

I bought this scanner having read the negative comments about the included software, but also the glowing reviews of the scan quality. At this point I would have to say I'm pleased with my purchase in general, but have been frustrated in certain ways. Overall I would have to say this scanner delivers at least fairly good quality in all types of scanning for the price you're paying, but it does not quite achieve professional or near-professional results. In the end, you still get what you pay for.

My intended use for the Perfection 2400 was primarily as a high quality photo scanner and hopefully good quality negative/slide scanner (it's usually better to scan negatives if you have them, and have a scanner capable of it). My tests have shown this model far more capable with photo prints than negatives - the sharpness is not quite there on negatives, even with the resolution set to maximum (2400 dpi - the scanner will let you select higher resolutions, but they're obviously interpolated). Yes, I've made sure the emulsion side is facing the scanner. There is no available focus adjustment, and this may be the problem (this is one of the features you pay for in a dedicated film scanner, or high-end flatbed). Annoyingly, the negative attachment likes to move around on the glass simply from the vibration from the scan motor - I have to tape it down to the side of the scanner to keep it in place. Worse, the scanner driver (even the latest version from Epson's web site) does not support multisampling (scanning the same image multiple times to reduce random noise), so to get the best quality scans you will need to purchase an external program that's capable of it. There is also a serious problem with Epson's dust and scratch removal algorithm when making high-res negative scans, resulting in large blotches all over your images (especially if you're using older, dustier negatives). Again, you will need to either use a separate scanning program capable of dust/scratch removal, or do it manually in an image editor.

For photo print scanning, this model is excellent, although the "auto" mode settings will not always give the best results. To get the best out of your scans you really need to learn how to use "professional" mode, and I was thankful that Epson provides so many advanced settings. With a minute or so of tweaking you can easily get a scan that looks exactly like your original photo, and displays every bit of detail.

I had initially written that I had no problems with the included software, but now have to amend that slightly - the scanner has repeatedly hard-locked my PC during scans, and when it does the scanner will no longer respond even after a reboot (the scanner itself must be unplugged; there is no on/off switch). I've also become increasingly annoyed with the fact that you can't scan in the background - when doing a batch of high-res negative scans that take up to 5 minutes each, it's very annoying that you can't even realistically browse the web or do anything else in the meantime. Other than that though, the software does still work better than some people give it credit for - the one-touch scanner buttons all work for me, and each application functions as it should. The scanner driver itself is something of a weak link.

This scanner is a worthy purchase at the mid-range of consumer flatbed scanners. I really wouldn't recommend this model if you're looking mainly for a negative scanner - get a dedicated film scanner instead. But for a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none, it's pretty decent given the price you're paying.

After several weeks of research, I bought my first scanner, the EPSON Perfection 2400. My goal was to convert several decades prints, film negatives, and slides. In my move to digital, the price of this scanner seemed extremely attractive for all the features it offered. The package also included the venerable Adobe Photoshop Elements (Version 1).

Right off the bat, the scanner would not install on my IBM Thinkpad T40, running factory installed Windows XP Pro. I would get a "Cannot Install Hardware. Data is Invalid" message when I connected the scanner even though the software installed successfully. After one week of research, including two one-hour sessions with EPSON support, I ended up reinstalling Windows XP. Epson support was unable to pinpoint the problem the first time but promised to call back within two days. They did not call. When I called again, I spoke to a "second tier support engineer" and she was able to identify a potential issue with my installation of Windows XP. Her recommendation was to re-install Windows XP. After I did that, the scanner was running within minutes.

Hardware: The scanner is very fast, and the results look fabulous. On print scanning ability, I would give this scanner top grade even when pitched against the professional grade scanner I have used at work. The scanning of negatives is not that good. The negative scans do not seem to produce very accurate colors and the images don't look as sharp as direct scans. This is certainly a disappointment, because scanning 5 negatives at one time seems like a better idea than loading prints one-by-one. Perhaps I need a better negative adapter; so far I've only been using the one that came along with the scanner.

Software: The scanner software leaves much to be desired. The installation of the software occurs in several steps, and it is impossible to intelligently choose the different components. If you have handheld software already installed, Presto! Pix software is installed without giving you a choice. Even though diskspace is not expensive, I think 150MB is excessive for the scanner software. Once the installation is complete, the Start-->Programs menu gets cluttered with about four or five items. The performance of the software itself is irratic and it is not always clear what it is doing. On several occasions, I have scanned a dozen or so images, and the scanner software just vanishes from the screen when I try to save to disk (the taskbar icon stays) and takes all my scans with it. I get the impression EPSON simply packaged software from multiple vendors and ended up in a tangled mess. The poor "Smart Panel" software is the only reason this review does not get five stars.

The saving grace is the inclusion of Adobe Photoshop Elements. Adobe Photoshop Elements makes up for almost all the shortcomings of the other "Smart Panel" software; perhaps the high quality of Photoshop Elements accentuates the problems with "Smart Panel" ! Photoshop Elements includes a plethora of features, and the software is very stable and of high quality.

Overall, this is a fine scanner and I recommend it without reservation. You can circumvent most of the poor "Smart Panel" software by using Adobe Photoshop elements.

After several scanners I chose the 2400. After reading some reviews I was expecting some problems. After some months now I have had zero problems. It produces very good quality from slides or prints. Sends to any file I want or directly to printer and faster than any scanner I have had. So far I am very impressed with the Epson 2400.

I read the other reviews complaining about the Epson software, and figured those people just didn't know what they were doing. WRONG! They were right. Smart Panel does NOT work. The buttons on the scanner can be configured to work with other programs, but one has to spend some time digging to figure this out. I have spent an entire day on this -- trying the updated drivers, etc., etc. Why Epson passes off the Smart Panel support to the 3rd party Newsoft is beyond me. They should eliminate the "Smart Panel" entirely. The documentation also stinks. I haven't had enough time to fully rate the scans themselves, but so far they seem good. I'm just soooo disappointed with the lack of ease of use.