Epson Perfection 3490 Photo Scanner

Nice for scanning slides and photo negatives too. I like it very much. I tried other scanners for scanning slides and photo films and the quality of scanning slides and films was poor. This scanner is very good for slides and films: it is not sensitive to the fact that the films are not flat - everything seems to be in focus, and I can see the film grain pretty well on the scan (at resolution 3600 pixels per inch). The time of scanning is reasonable. Software interface is reasonably good too. Good deal for the price. Scanning regular papers works too. (to change from slides to papers one has to change cover insert). Reflective mode (for papers) is done with white plastic cover, and transparent films mode is with a lamp (lighted plastic strip) in the cover. A good scanning solution, good price. Specialized scanners for films are several times more expensive.

I have purchased used equipment in the past but never had the problems that I have had with this scanner. It did not dow what I wanted it to do when I got it. Was able to get Epson to consider it under warranty. Had to take time out of my day to take to an Epson repair depot. They reparied it. Now less than 2 months later it isn't even detected by the computer anymore. I isn't even heavy enough to be used as a boat anchor. Junk when I got and still junk!

works great, once I took the time out to figure things out even the the quick buttons on the front of the scanner worked but its not intuitive. So its 4 stars cause I can't give it a 4 1/2

This is a very good and economical scanner. It is much more reliable than the two Visoneer Scanners I previously owned. They were always losing their connections midway through a scan, at boot up, etc. I can count on this machine. The fact that this scanner will by default automatically save to the universal PDF format is another plus.
I like the pre-scan automatic recognition feature. It does a great job with both color and black and white text documents, and is reasonably good with photographs. I would not suggest it for scanning slides nor any other scanner of this class for that matter. For slides of high and reliable quality you should get a dedicated slide scanner such as those made by Nikon and Canon.
I heartily recommend this scanner.

This works as expected, but I really disliked the Mac software it came with and opted to scan and edit via Photoshop. Also, it only scans 3 slides/pass. Sorta lame if you have hundreds to do.