Print capabilities of Epson 4490 and 4990?

[John51]

Hi, first post.

Assuming the camera and my picture taking and scanning technique is good enough, what are the biggest commercial lab wet prints I can get from the 4490 and 4990 with 35mm and medium format? Colour neg and slides only, I have a darkroom for B&W.

I'm considering getting one of these 2 as a foot in the water thing, lets me get acquainted with VueScan. Can upgrade once I know what I'm doing.

For now, if I want anything bigger than what the scanner is capable of, I'll send the neg/slide out. Knowing the maximum acceptable print size will give me a target to aim at.

Thanks

 

[cooltouch]

I have a 4990 and I've scanned a lot of negatives and slides with it, almost all of which are 35mm. These days, about the only sorts of scans I do anymore with my 4990 are medium format. The negatives are large enough where a good amount of image sharpness is retained. With 35mm, I've found that my scanner is just not capable of resolving detail at the level I require. The 4990's claims of 4800 ppi scans are not realistic. Actual true resolution is somewhere around 2000 ppi. Almost all the rest is just image bloat. So, nowadays, I use my digital camera, a NEX 7, with a duplication rig I cobbled together to duplicate my 35mm slides and negatives. This works very well, providing me with true "scans" of 6000 x 4000 ppi resolution, which are in the same ballpark as the Nikon Coolscans.

Now, as for the maximum size prints you can get from a 4490's or 4990's scan, it really depends on what you find acceptable. The 4990 is the better scanner of the two, so I would go with it. I haven't made any prints from scans -- I make them from my dupes -- but I would go ahead and try 11x14s, see if you can get acceptable results with prints that large. If you don't like the results, then bump it down to 8x10. Heck, I've seen acceptable prints made from 2mp digicams, so I don't see why either a 4490's or 4990's scans wouldn't work at 8x10.

One thing that bears mentioning, as a difference between the two scanners -- the 4990 can scan large format, whereas the 4490 can't. The 4990 has holders for 4x5s, but a custom holder can be made such that it can even scan 8x10. I have a friend with a 4990 who makes the equivalent of contact prints scanning 4x5s. He takes these scans and prints directly from them, using various fancy grades of paper -- I don't recall the printer he's using, but it's a good one. His prints come out looking very nice, especially on some of the more exotic papers he uses.

 

[jeffreyg]

I have an "ancient" Epson 4870 scanner with SilverFast Studio8 software to scann 2 1/4 and 4x5 B&W negatives. Delta 400 and HP5 and occasionally Delta 100. I print on an Epson 3880 on Hahnemhule Photo Rag Baryta gloss paper and in a wet darkroom on ilford MGFB gloss. I have printed to 16x20 in both and see in a slight difference in the mid tones I can't see a noticeable difference in the sharpness. I had some printed to 30x40 in but I don't know what their process was but the images were quite sharp. I'm sure drum scans might have some difference but I doubt it will really change the effectiveness of the images.

http://www.jeffreyglasser.com/