We have an Epson Stylus Photo RX500. It is an all in one machine. It scans photos, negatives and slides. It also has a built in three slot card reader. I would rate it a solid 4. The more you use it the better it prints but that is probably true for any printer.

The scanner I'm currently using is an H-P all-in-one(2610 xi). It does a fair job printing and copying photos and documents. I haven't tried it with slides or negatives. On the printing side, this printer is very pickey about what paper it prints on. I've had best results with H-P paper.
Chas

My scanner is a dino

Epson Perfection 1660 Photo. I have had it for years and it still works fine.
I don't have negatives to scan so this suite me.

Lately I have been scanning photos of my mother-in-laws albums to make a slide show. It's turning out great because I put 4-6 photos on the scanner and do this thru PSE5 Catalog and then in editor I have the software divide the photos.........quick easy and flawless every time.

Steve,

Will your Plustek negative holder sit on the glass of your Epson scanner? Or is it an entirely different design?

I have the Epson 4990 -- they probably use the exact same black plastic holder you have with your earlier model. I have the same problem with a lot of cupped B&W negative strips.

If your "good holder" works with the Epson, I'm going to investigate trying to buy just a new holder.

Rusty

Hi Rusty,
I loved your question. I hopped into action and found that although I could get negatives scanned using the Plustek holder and the Epson scanner, the result wasn't all that great. I compared tonight's scans with scans of the same negatives done on the Plustek this summer.

The pictures weren't as sharp as they should have been ( Kodak Tri-X and Kodacolor Gold 100) and the colors were a bit washed out. I played with one picture and improved it with USM and hue/sat adjustments. A B&W shot was much easier to improve in PSE, just like you'd expect. They were better than nothing, but you wouldn't frame them and give them as gifts. The Plustek holder prevented the Newton Rings that I described earlier.

The Plustek holder is enough thicker than the Epson that the lid didn't close right. I'm sure that the difference in thickness put the negative at a slightly different height than the original Epson holder and that must have affected how the scanner focused. Also, I had to use the Epson film holder to eyeball where to place the Plustek holder.

I'd say, if you can get a negative holder cheap (I got the Plustek from NewEgg) and you've got some free time and some patience, you might do OK.

Thanks for the investigative effort, Steve,

It's interesting... when I was ready to buy a new scanner I did a lot of online looking, dpreview and other such sites. It seems that a very common shortcoming of many of the flatbed scanners used to scan negatives was a crappy filmholder. Some were described as, "cheap, easily broken, flimsy plastic... etc"

It's too bad that the manufacturers devote so much effort on optics, electronics and software but the filmholders are apparently just an afterthought.

Rusty