Accessories

Works Better Than I Would Have Thought Possible!
I was going to buy one of the 100 dollar Sharper Image/ Hammacher-Schlemer type single slide scanners but after checking around on the web decided to go with the Epson 4490. It honestly works better than I would have thought possible.

Speed is not bad, images are great, setup went well. I have scanned about 100 slides without a hitch so far. I guess I should have written this review after scanning the thousand slides that I eventually have to do but so far I must say that I couldn't be happier.

For the price, this unit works great.

Works great with OS X Leopard
I researched scanners as best I could to find one that was compatible with Apple's OS X 10.5 Leopard operating system. I was not disappointed by the Epson 4490 Photo scanner. Epson's supplied software is compatible with Intel processor based Macs and the 4490 is recognized by OS X 10.5's Image Capture software as well. It also works fine with the excellent VueScan application that is very popular on the Mac platform. So all in all I'm well pleased with the product on my Mac computer. The 4490 Photo also provides for 35mm color slide scanning and can scan four 35mm slides at a time.

Finding a product that works well on the Macintosh can be a daunting task sometimes. Not in this case.

Epson Scanner 4490
I find the Epson Scanner easy to use and makes the scanning of the slides and photos an enjoyable task. The Photo Shop Elememts program enhances old slides and photos to better that original quality. I highly recommend it.

did not work correctly
Did not work. Called support who kept me on the phone for almost 30 monutes and then agreed that it did not work. They wanted me to take it to a repair place. I told them that I just took it out of the box and I wanted to returen it. The place that I bought it from took it back and gave me a full refund but it did cost me $11.50 to return it.

A total crapshoot, apparently.
I owned this machine for all of 90 minutes, and I'm sending it back.

I didn't want that to be the case - the glowing reviews are *really* glowing - but it really does seem like you stand about a 1-3 chance of this just being a total piece of garbage if you buy it. And mine was a total piece of garbage.

My purpose was to scan 120 negatives. I got all of _one single scan_ before it gave me nothing more than images of noise and static that in no way resembled my slides. The 'instructions' are worthless (basically a glorified _poster_ that does nothing but illustrate the process right up to your first attempt to scan an image, then NOTHING -- no troubleshooting or explaining ANY of the features or software windows at ALL), the online manual is mediocre at best, and after re-reading the other reviews here, I didn't even try the customer service. Scans take ridiculous amount of time; 6 attempts took me more than an hour. I was lucky in that at least I did not have one of the noisy machines, I guess.
And for the record, my husband downloaded the software for me, and being a software programmer with an MA, I'm assuming he did it correctly.

Now, I get that sometimes there are duds, and that sometimes it takes a bit to learn how to use a new piece of equiptment. But I'd like to at least be GIVEN directions to start with, AND don't appreciate having to hard core troubleshoot within 5 minutes of starting to use something.

Seriously and completely disappointed. DO. NOT. BUY. Or if you do, consider yourself warned about your chances/luck. Probably better off gambling in Vegas. Blech.