Good for transparencies, worth the price
Written: Jan 04 '03 (Updated Aug 30 '05)
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Pros: Fast, good colour depth and resolution, good for scanning transparencies.
Cons: Software rather inflexible.
The Bottom Line: Overall, I'm very happy with this scanner and would recommend it - it's more expensive than some others with similar features but worth it, especially for transparencies.
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| philmck's Full Review: Epson Perfection® 2400 PHOTO Flatbed Scanner |
Reason for purchase
I bought the Epson Perfection 2400 as a replacement for a Plustek OpticPro UT12, which had two big problems for me - insufficient colour depth when scanning transparencies, and slow speeds when photocopying. (Also one of the hinges broke, which was my final excuse!) The Epson has indeed overcome these problems.
Transparency scanning
I wanted to digitally archive my transparencies at some stage, so was hoping it would save me the cost of either having them all professionally scanned, or buying a dedicated transparency scanner. So the first thing I did after unpacking it was to find a slide I had previously had difficulty with and see how it performed. The difference was remarkable (see www.mckerracher.org/perfection2400). The colour rendition was much better and there was more detail visible, even after resampling down to 800 x 600 for the web. So the extra cost of the Epson scanner (more than double the price of the old Plustek) was already justified for me.
For archiving, I wanted to make sure none of the original detail was lost, though. So I compared the scan with a large projected image of the same slide from a slide projector. Using the default "automatic" mode, there was a very slight reduction in detail in the scanned image. Surprisingly, though, there was no loss of colour or intensity information that I could discern - the shadows and highlights could be distinguished equally well on the scanned and projected images. Checking the edges, there was hardly any image lost from over-zealous cropping by the automatic driver.
Trying a manual 2400 bpi resolution scan, there did seem to be slightly more detail visible. I checked the file sizes and it appears that the automatic mode was using 1200 bpi for some reason. At the higher 2400 resolution, the grain of the film was actually visible, though, so I'm not sure there was any real benefit, which might explain it.
Speed
The Perfection 2400 did photocopy much faster than my old scanner, but not with the supplied software. The supplied utility does a grayscale scan, which is not what I want for scanning black and white originals. You end up with tiny black dots printed in the white areas, the blacks are not as intense and it takes longer. I did manage to get a black and white scan by selecting "Color" in "Device Settings" then "Black monotone conversion" in "Image adjust", but this causes the scanner to do a preliminary scan before the main one, which doubles the scan time and defeats the purpose. However, a shareware utility called "Copyshop" does manage to get nice quick black-and-white copies via the Epson supplied TWAIN driver so it is possible.
Software
The supplied software is my biggest complaint. The "full auto" mode works pretty well for most things, but when it doesn't, I found it difficult to do things manually. For example, I couldn't find any way to select the area of a transparency that was actually scanned - the scanning area options are greyed out as soon as the light in the lid is turned on. As someone else has pointed out, it's also difficult to send a multi-page fax. It is reasonably bug-free though (with Windows 2000).
The supplied OCR software seems to work as well as any I've tried. The Adobe Photoshop Elements software supplied is also OK - in fact I had already bought it previously and could have saved the money if I had known! (There is a conflict between Photoshop Elements and the TWAIN driver for a Kodak DC240 camera though.)
Build quality
The build quality and appearance seem OK. It's fairly quiet compared to my old scanner. I did notice the slight fogging of the glass that someone else has mentioned but it doesn't seem to affect the scans and I haven't bothered disassembling the unit to clean it. The adapter for positioning transparencies is robust and you can scan four transparencies at once, although this takes a surprisingly long time (3 mins 50s, of which 1 min was warmup and prescanning). There is in fact a place to store the adapter, behind the white backing plate in the cover which lifts out, as explained by an insert in the manual.
I did previously purchase a (cheaper) Canoscan D2400, which turned out to be a mistake. It was no faster than my old scanner for photocopying, and I couldn't get the USB2 mode to work (blue screen of death). I don't know if the scanner or USB2 card was at fault, because each worked fine with other devices in USB1 mode. So I returned both.
Update
I've now tried the USB2 mode with the Perfection scanner, having found a USB2 card that works in my PC. It works fine, and does in fact make a noticeable difference even with the lower resolution "text" scan mode. It now scans an A4 page of text as fast as it can be printed (in normal resolution on an Epson Stylus Color 900), which means the scanner is no longer the weakest link when used as a photocopier.
I've also now tried scanning colour negatives, with good results. In "automatic" mode the colours actually appeared better than a photographic print from the same negative, probably because of better "whitepoint" compensation. With automatic compensation disabled, scans from a negative appeared a little dark and had a blue tinge, but I have no way of telling whether this was a fault of the original negative.
Update 2
It's quite easy to clean the glass to remove the slight fogging described above. Just unplug the unit, remove the cover and undo two screws at the rear to get access to the inside surface of the glass.
A sample scan and a comparison scan taken with my old scanner are at www.mckerracher.org/perfection2400
Update 3
This scanner has now failed (August 2005) - it developed a bright streak down one edge. I've had it apart and cleaned all the optics, but it seems to be an electrical fault. I've seen one other report of this fault, it seems to be a weakness. I've now had three epson printers and a scanner that have failed after only a year or two of use, so my impression is that robustness is not their strong point.
Apart from build quality, the main improvement I will look for in the replacement scanner will be speed, especially when using it as a photocopier.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 300
Interface: USB
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Epinions.com ID:
philmck
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Member: Phil McKerracher
Location: London, UK
Reviews written: 11
Trusted by: 4 members
About Me:
See www.mckerracher.net
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