Customer Reviews

HP 4570C ScanJet Scanner

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

Nice scanner, good front panel buttons, easy to set up and install. But the software handcuffs it. In an effort to make things easy for the naive user, HP has brain damaged it beyond repair. For example - once you preview and then do a final scan, it throws you out of the preview screen and into the picture viewer. If you want to redo the scan, or scan a different part of the image, you have to get out of the viewer, back to the scanner, do another preview ... see the problem?

On quality - all I can say from a brief trial is that the 2400 dpi scan of negatives was noticeably less sharp than a 2400 dpi scan I sent out to Kodak.

I'm told that the higher end and older HP scanners - the 5400 and 7400 series - come with less inflexible software. This one is going back.

i bought this scanner to replace a paperport one touch that is not supported by Windows XP home edition. it has many good attributes including: fairly fast scanning at 600 dpi or less, good opitcal resolution, reasonable color reproduction, good image editing tools in the twain and image gallery, flawless installation on my dell 4550.
what i didn't like:
1) twain interface is a bit cumbersome, and if you decide to go through the twain, it wants to do a 6 sec preview each time you open it, whether or not you want a preview.
2) the one button copy function is only fair and cannot be programmed for a new default scan quality.
3) the images that pop up in the image gallery after scanning often have that funny repeating color pattern that goes away if you zoom in several levels; it makes assessing the quality of your scan more difficult.
4) documentation is poor.
NOTE: none of these is a fatal flaw but they detract from overall utility.

The scanner is fast and it makes great scans of documents and photos. Colors were pretty accurate and detail was excellent. However, I purchased and returned this scanner 3 times in a row for manufacturer's defects. (1) The first 4570 had dirt on the underside of the glass bed (2)the second had a defective power supply (scanner would over heat). (3) The third one developed verticle lines along the edge of every photo I scanned. HP technical support said it was a problem with the internal mirrors. Despite these problems, I think the scanner does an excellent when it is properly functioning. If you are lucky enough to get one without defects, I think you will be very pleased with the scan quality. I recommend buying this scanner from a company that has a liberal return policy. Also, I recommend buying a 3 year extended warranty. HP sells one very inexpensively. HP will overnight express a replacement unit to you under its extended warranty. (An extended warranty is a must for this scanner.) Note: All of my references to great scan quality apply to photos and documents, not 35 mm film. The 35mm film holder was arwkard to use. It was difficult to load 35mm film without getting finger prints all over the film. Also, the 35mm scans were too dark. I would not count on using this scanner for 35mm film. Also, none of the third party high-end scanner software works with the 4570. For example: Vuescan and SilverFast software work with the Epson scanners, but they don't work with the 4570.

I bought the HP Scanjet 4750c about three weeks before buying my new G4 Power Mac, not knowing of the compatability issues.
On my old PC this is a terriffic scanner, particularly for its price category. It's very fast and the Photo and Imaging Director software is pertty intuitive with a versitile photo gallery that is a bit like Mac's iPhoto only with more options. You can perform various functions either from within the software or from the buttons on the scanner itself. I gave it four stars as a PC scanner.
On the Mac it's a disaster. I waited five months for HP to come out with a driver for OS 10.2 only to find that was very flawed, though I could get a basic scan out of it. HP does not use TWAIN, sticking instead to its stand-alone software, and they just haven't gotten it right in the Mac. Then when I updated my OS to 10.2.5 the scanner software didn't work at all. HP told me there is a known issue with 10.2.5 in which some of the scanner extensions are deleted from the Systems Extension folder. I never found out because trying to get into the folder completely locked up the Mac and I had to do a forced shut down and pray I hadn't damaged my computer.
I will say this: the HP technical support personnel are among the best I have ever delt with; friendly, patient, and generally knowledgeable (and starting in April it's a free 800 call).
If you own a PC and are looking for a fast, reasonably priced scanner, the HP Scanjet 4570c is a decent option. If you own a Mac, look elsewhere.

I bought this scanner because it has the features I was looking for, including a built-in transparency adapter and support for both Windows and Mac OS X.

It works reasonably well on Windows. If you scan on the higher resolutions, of course, you'll need lots of memory, disk space, and patience. At lower resolutions (300 dpi) it's fast and quiet.

The software is somewhat lame... you can adjust the settings at the preview pane before capturing the scan -- but if you want to adjust settings and capture a new scan, you have to start over on the preview pane (it won't remember your last settings, size, crop, etc).

Transparency scanning was kind of disappointing. The automatically adjusted image was way too dark, and the entire negative strip showed up as one image (I was hoping the software would be smart enough to detect the individual frames... no such luck.)

The greatest disappointment is the lack of Mac OS X support. The box says it supports Mac OS X 10.1.2 "or higher", but after fooling around for a while and not having any luck, I discovered on HP's web site that OS X 10.2 is not supported. One can only hope they'll eventually fix the problems and support the latest OS.

I bought this scanner for one reason. I wanted to scan 35mm slides. The product info says it will do this. However, all my slides are in jackets and the tma adapter for this scanner will not accept them. I can scan 35mm negatives just fine. If I want to scan my slides, I would have to remove them from the jackets which would be time consuming and pretty much ruin them. I also find the manual and help information for the scanner to be pretty much useless. If you are new to scanning then this is not the machine for you. My one star rating is because the scanner will not do what it advertised it would.

I know that others don't like this scanner. But I have found it easy to use. I can change the resolution, color, contrast, etc. before importing it into Adobe Photoshop, HP Photoprinting, Adobde Illustrator, and Corel Photo with no problems.
I also love the fact that I can scan my negatives and go on from there as if it were a regular photo on the glass.

The hardware is adequate for the price, with good, vibrant color.

But the software is so terribly written, with a clunky, bizarre user interface, that it's a huge pain to get anything done. And woe betide you if you ever need to scan more than one slide at a time with the included transparency adapter. For each slide you must laboriously tell the import software to use the adapter, which you cannot do until it has made a useless preview scan with the flatbed.

Avoid this product like the plague. Shame on HP!

I hooked up my HP 4570C in 5 minutes and it scans in a few seconds flat. I scanned to my printer also, in color, in just a few seconds. I have no trouble editing pics. I am running Windows XP on a Pentium 4 with 512 mb RAM. I would recommend to anyone, I found it simple and fast, excellent quality.

This thing eats resources like nothing I've ever seen. Any scan over 600 dpi takes forever (try an hour for 2400DPI). Output files are huge (600M) and even with 130M of free ram it often pops out error messages. Granted I use a PII 450 with 256M but never had these issues with my old 4200c. I wasted 3 days trying to get this useable without success. The best I did was a 1200dpi 5X7 and that took nearly an hour. Neither the latest driver nor Customer Service helped. Don't make my mistake.