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| For less than $200, it’s hard to beat the wide color gamut, versatility, color restoration and retouching abilities of the HP Scanjet G4050 Photo Scanner. |
Q: I have piles of old prints, colorful paintings and drawings, as well as a few rolls of medium-format transparency film that I want to scan and then reprint. Do you know of a low-priced scanner that can do a decent job on all these different types of originals?
A: It's hard to recommend a scanner that can handle all three without knowing how big your prints, paintings, and drawings are, since pro-level 11x14-inch and 16x20-inch models cost $1,000 or more.
But if your idea of low-cost is under $200, start by looking at the Epson Perfection 4490 Photo ($190, street). It scans up to 8.5x11.7-inch originals at 4800-dpi resolution and 48 bits per color. You can scan larger prints and paintings by doing so in sections and then combining them later in an imaging program.
Plus, it has film holders for 35mm slides and negs, and 120/220 film. It also features Digital ICE for scratch removal and Epson's Easy Photo Fix for restoring faded color in prints and film.
However, many original paintings and drawings use colored dyes and pigments that exceed the color gamut of film prints and most lowcost flatbed scanners. To capture these colors with greater precision, we recommend the Hewlett-Packard Scanjet G4050 Photo Scanner ($190, street). Its unique six-color scanning technology provides an expanded color gamut, 4800x9600-dpi resolution, and 96- bit color depth for extremely fine color gradation. It also handles up to 8.5x12.3-inch prints and flat art.
HP's built-in IR dust and scratch removal technology saves retouching time, and you can batch-scan up to 16 slides or 30 negs at the same time and save them to different files. Film holders are included for mediumand large-format (up to 4x5) film.
Supplied software lets you remove redeye from photos, restore faded colors, optimize exposure, and convert scanned images to a wide variety of file formats for editing or e-mailing.
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