HP ScanJet 4890 Photo Scanner

...the box you get: the HP ScanJet 4890 photo scanner, built-in slide and negative adapter and template kit, USB cable, power supply adapter/power cord, CDs with software and user instructions, setup poster, user's manual, warranty card

My experience.

A lot about this scanner is excellent but not everything. It is very quick to scan but doesn’t always recognise everything it should, for example when loading with 16 slides ...
...of them, you either have to try and do it manually or you have to find the missed ones and reload them.
The thumbnail previews are tiny and you can’t enlarge them. It’s virtually impossible to tell the quality from a thumbnail this small so you have to do that from the fully scanned image which does waste time.

The image quality isn’t always good. It sometimes has blurred images and streaks which were not on the original. Scanning ... more

When I bought this Scanjet 4890 I was looking for a scanner that would be able to quickly scan photos, slides and negatives at high quality as well as being a good all rounder. It was quite expensive when it was new and hasn’t always given me the quality I expected.

It was aimed at the amateur photographer and identified as being an efficient, high speed, stylish scanner perfect for restoring and archiving photographs, slides and negatives.

As scanners go it is fairly attractive and unobtrusive in design. Constructed in a dark bluish grey it looks professional and is well made. The scanner only has 4 buttons (Scan, Scan film, Copy, Scan to share) so is easy to get started and use. It has an adjustable lid which allows it to scan bulky items, such as books, more easily. It is a reasonable size and weight; its vital statistics are (H x L x W) 7.3 x 23.1 x 17.8 inches and it weighs 11.2 pounds. The scan bed is large enough to process standard 8" x 12" photos

It is also quick; providing preview scans in around six seconds, and will scan multiple images into individual files at about 10 seconds per page. It has a built-in adapter which makes it easy to produce batch scans of 16 slides, 30 negatives or a single 4" x 5” film negative. This is superb when you have a lot of images you want to archive as it makes quick work of them. The single negative scan is perfect when work needs to be done in restoration.

The specified image resolution is high; up to 4800 x 9600-dpi, in 48-bit colour and 256-level grayscale. It’s software ‘HP Real Life technologies’ is designed to help make images more lifelike. With it it’s possible to enhance the focus, contrast and sharpness of scanned digital photos you can also modify colour saturation, tint, and brightness plus there are separate brightness adjustments for highlights, shadows and midtones.

The software also allows you to remove dust and scratches, restore faded colours, brightening dark areas and correct red eye. Enlargements and reductions can be done via the onscreen menu in a range of 10 to 2,000 % in increments of 1%. The software has integrated optical character recognition (OCR) which allows you to scan text ad edit it. You have a choice of text format for the output file including RTF and searchable PDF. The software works with both Macintosh and Windows operating systems although I can’t vouch for Vista as I haven’t tried it with that OS yet.

There are three included templates for scanning: one for up to 16 35 mm slides, one for 5 strips of 35 mm film, and one for 120 and 220 medium format and 4 x 5” film. To scan you remove the mat from the top cover to reveal the transparency adaptor, place the template on the flatbed, and put the film in the template which is foolproof

In the box you get: the HP ScanJet 4890 photo scanner, built-in slide and negative adapter and template kit, USB cable, power supply adapter/power cord, CDs with software and user instructions, setup poster, user's manual, warranty card

My experience.

A lot about this scanner is excellent but not everything. It is very quick to scan but doesn’t always recognise everything it should, for example when loading with 16 slides or 30 negatives it doesn’t always recognise and scan all of them, you either have to try and do it manually or you have to find the missed ones and reload them.
The thumbnail previews are tiny and you can’t enlarge them. It’s virtually impossible to tell the quality from a thumbnail this small so you have to do that from the fully scanned image which does waste time.

The image quality isn’t always good. It sometimes has blurred images and streaks which were not on the original. Scanning a photograph to enlarge often doesn’t work too well as the image is poorly defined and blurred much more than I would expect. I find I can scan the same image several times and get several different qualities; it isn’t very consistent at all. It is worth rescanning over and over as it will at some point come up with a decent one but this process is a pain.

I find the time saved by the speed of the scanner is generally used in fiddling with the scan or rescanning it.

The software for enhancing images is good: The red eye removal and text scanning in particular.

I have now replaced this scanner and have attached it to one of the kids PCs and it will be fine for the type of stuff they will do on it but it hasn’t really been all that suitable for my needs. I'd only recommend ths scanner if you find it very cheaply and will only use it for scanning 'snaps' - if you need consistent and reliable results of a high standard I would advise you to look elsewhere 

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