High definition means huge file sizes . Stands taller than normal
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
Having just gone to the expense of upgrading to Windows XP, buying an extra 40gb drive for back-up purposes and four drive caddies to allow safe drive-swapping, I could well have done without having to buy yet another piece of replacement hardware for my PC, but my scanner’s just gone west, so please read generously – wife and PC upgrade habit to support!
The old scanner WAS a Hewlett Packard 4100c, but now it’s just a cream plastic ornament. OK, so I’ve had it 2 years or so, but how much use does a scanner get in the domestic environment? To be frank, I’m a bit p***** at HP, since the thing’s had the equivalent of a month’s office use, so I’m b******d if I’ll consider another scanner from them – vote with your feet, that’s what I say!! I suppose the moral of the story is “Don’t buy electronic stuff you’ll not be using much, as it’s almost a guarantee that it’ll go wrong OUTSIDE the warranty period”
Anyway, my next venture into the wonderful world of multi-media was to have been a project to put all of my colour slides and negatives onto CD-Rs. The 4100c had no facility for this, so it’s untimely demise just brings forward the inevitable upgrade to something that does. Hey ho, dust off the flexible friend (again!).
BASIC DETAILS
So what did I buy? : The Epson 1650 Photo scanner, costing around £157 at www.dabs.com. I also paid the extra £3 to have it delivered after 5pm. It just goes to show how much cheaper this kit is getting. I’m sure I paid way more than that for the 4100c, and it doesn’t (or rather didn’t) do as much! The 1650 Photo comes firmly in the middle of Epson’s quality and price range, being neither a “pro” model nor entry level.
a) Appearance
Well, it’s a flatbed A4 scanner, so no surprises there, as it sits on your desktop in a “portrait” kind of direction. The colour? Two-tone grey, wow! The major difference with the photo model, as opposed to other scanners, is that the lid looks rather thickly domed. This allows for the lighting needed for the back-illumination of your transparent media, e.g. slides or negatives.
The power for the lighting comes from a jumper lead, which plugs into the “Option” socket on the rear of the main body of the scanner. Presumably, anyone with the non-Photo version of the 1650, could buy this and add it on, but no doubt, this would be a dearer way to get a Photo version than simply buying one in the first place!
The front panel has “Quickstart” buttons, which, once the software is installed, allow for “Straight to Printer, FAX, e-mail” facilities. It neither the dinkiest, (like a Canoscan model), nor the bulkiest A4 scanner I ever saw, with a footprint of 17” by 10”, although it does stand 4.5” high. The lid has opening hinges, to allow for thicker items to be put onto the glass.
b) Specification
Genuine 1600 dot per inch (dpi) scanning; none of those phoney “interpolated” figures giving the impression that it’s something it’s not! This is important especially if you are scanning colour slides, since they aren’t much more than 1” wide themselves, so even at the Epson’s top quality scan rate, you’ve still got a picture divided widthways into only 1600-odd dots. In truth this is nowhere near the quality of the original, since the chemical grains on the celluloid that make up the slide are much finer than that. It is however easily good enough for what I want since I’m not intending to throw them onto the silver screen any more. Besides, I gave my projector to a jumble sale. This definition is also slightly better than the 1440 dpi of my colour printer, also an Epson, so the scanner is no longer the “weakest link” in my chain of reproduction, especially when making full size 1:1 prints from scans. The largest re-incarnation of any of my slides will now been an A4 print.
Unlike some Canon and other models, this still uses a mains adapter to provide its power. Some of the former now take their power from the USB connection, but with all that extra lighting, perhaps that wouldn’t be such a good idea, despite the neatness this brings.
Colour is scanned by a maximum of 48-bit processing, which means that in theory at least, it scan differentiate 281 TRILLION colours, which might actually be a bit of over-kill, especially since many picture files like JPEGS from the web, may only have 256, and even THEY look OK!
Why, it even boasts 16,384 shades of grey – John Major, eat your heart out.
c) Software Supplied
As well as drivers for all strains of Windows and the Mac OS, the CD-ROM bundled software contains:
Arcsoft Photimpression – imaging software that allows you to adjust all kinds of elements of the picture.
Optical Character recognition software for scanning the printed word direct into text files.
Adobe Photoshop Elements.
Personally, I’m never that impressed at the prospect of “YATUBGP” – Yet Another Totally Unneccesary Bloody Graphics package. I’m awash with them, thanks to magazine disks etc.
I’ll just stick to Paint Shop Pro 7, thanks very much! It has the ability to kick-start the scanner from its list of TWAIN devices and haul the result onto screen, from whence I can twiddle and eventually file it. I’m not sure if it’s true, but I was once told that TWAIN stands for “Thing Without An Interesting Name” – sounds about right!
INSTALLATION
Two CD-ROMS are supplied, one with drivers and all the Epson-supplied software for OCR, scanning to file, scanning to FAX, scanning to printer etc. These all come under the collective umbrella of the Epson “Smart Panel” once installed and all your scanning needs can be initiated from here.
The second CD installs Adobe Photoshop Elements – OK so I gave in and installed it. It was either that or look at one “greyed-out” option in the Smart Panel!
Windows XP users note: you have to uninstall the TWAIN driver supplied with this disk and let Windows put its own in. Other than that, the install went like clockwork.
IN USE
1. BASIC SCANNING - One thing that is immediately noticeable, is that despite the higher definition, it is markedly faster than my old HP 4100c. The initial pre-scan is only delayed by “lamp warm-up”, before whizzing through the initial scan and dumping it to a thumbnail sketch.
You do have to bear in mind that A4 sized scans at top definition do make extremely large files; even 1600 dpi scans of a colour slide can result in a 26mb JPEG file – now THAT’s some JPEG file for such a little picture!
When launching Smart Panel, your options are:
COPY – straight to printer, a kind of poor man’s photocopier.
SCAN TO E-MAIL – a utility that put the scan direct into e-mail as an attachment, just add the recipient’s details. Be careful how big a file you create. Even if you’re on broadband, the recipient might not be, and they won’t be leaving you on the Christmas card list if you keep sending them 3mb file attachments.
SCAN TO OCR – this allows for printed matter to be sent straight to a text file, for editing and knocking back into shape. In my experience, the latter process can take longer than copy-typing!
PHOTO PRINT – Like Copy, but with more options for selecting higher definitions.
SCAN TO APPLICATION – This allows you to opt for a different graphics package after the initial scanning has taken place.
PHOTOSHOP – does what it says on the can, i.e. launches Photoshop!
SCAN TO WEB – Like scan to e-mail, except that it prepares the photo for upload to a photo-sharing web-site. You must register before doing this.
SCAN TO FILE – again, this just launches the scanning facility, with the end option of choosing where to dump the files created, and a chance to change the format, BMP, JPEG etc.
2. SCANNING SLIDES AND NEGATIVES - Proficient though the 1650 is at all these, I really bought it for its ability to digitise my old photo negatives and slides.
The domed lid I spoke of earlier has the usual brilliant white soft plastic layer to press conventional work down against the glass. Removal of this by sliding it out long ways reveals a central strip light for the back-illumination of your transparent media. To position either slides (4 at a time) or 35mm negatives (six at a time), you get a universal template, which puts the said work exactly under the strip light.
Then by selecting the nature of the medium to be scanned, the scanner sets off as per normal, doing its first test scan. Rather cleverly, it then puts the thumbnail sketches for these into separate boxes on screen. Therefore, four slides really do come out as four pictures, each with a default file name e.g. file0001.jpg. (Now there’s original….not!). Whilst the thumbnails are displayed, you can un-check any that you don’t want a full scan from, and also rotate through 90 degrees any, which are “portrait format”. Also, now is a good time to reverse any that you have the wrong way round. Full definition scans (1600 dpi) take a long time to complete, and can even SEEM to lock your machine up, so it’s best to experiment little by little to see how many you can do at once, without giving up the will to live! The few trial slides and negatives that I have tried so far are really good, although I’ve yet to print any at their largest (for me anyway) size of A4. The postcards I have done are as good as photos to the naked eye. Of course, if you insist on using a magnifying glass, you’ll see the differences.
My advice, if archiving slides or negatives, would be to use the highest definition possible, but save to a CD-R if you have a CD-RW machine. At these file sizes, even the biggest of today’s hard drives will start to get a bit crowded if each slide needs 26mb!
CONCLUSION
The 1650 Photo is doubly useful IF you want the photographic features. It’s basic abilities with paper media are as good as most other scanners with a similar specification, and the price doesn’t take too big a hit because of its extra features. I’m really pleased with it!
More details
Ease of use
Easy
Design
Good
Range of extra features / functions
Good
Instruction manual
Good
Manufacturer Support
Good
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