BIOS: Technology Means Business

The Perfection 2480 Photo won't appeal to discerning photographers or business users looking for a high-input solution, but Epson's latest flatbed scanner offers a great deal of functionality for an entry-level price. Succeeding the Perfection 1670 and Perfection 1670 Photo, the 48-bit Perfection 2480 Photo comes with a removable film adapter for digitising and archiving positive and negative 35mm film, and supports an optional multi-photo feeder for scanning up to 24 photos (10x15in.) automatically. You also get colour restoration and dust removal features for repairing old and faded photos, as well as software that makes it quick and easy to scan to e-mail or the Web. The scanner's pretty speedy too, but it's held back by mediocre image quality. Nevertheless, it would be a good choice for newcomers or family environments.

Pros: 35mm adapter; good software bundle; optional photo feeder
Cons: Mediocre image quality; no optional ADF; noisy; no FireWire

The Perfection 2480 Photo (275x419x86mm, 3kg) is a colour flatbed scanner designed for individuals and small businesses, so it's a good thing the unit and its associated software are a breeze to install and use. Once you've connected the scanner to your PC, Mac or laptop using the supplied USB 2.0 cable, all you have to do is install the driver software and the bundled utilities.

Thankfully, you can customise the software installation by selecting only the programs that you want to install, which helps to save time and hard disk space. There's a transportation lock on the bottom of the scanner too, which has to be released so the scanner can operate. There's no paper-based user guide though, so you'll have to install the browser-based reference guide if you encounter any problems.

The Perfection 2480 Photo provides useful features that make achieving good results a breeze. For instance, there are four dedicated buttons on the front of the scanner that let you scan a document to your computer, scan and save a document, scan and then e-mail a file, or just copy a document. The supplied TWAIN-compliant driver software also supports multiple-document auto detection, multiple-document auto cropping, automatic skew correction, multiple marquee, and film scanning thumbnail previews.

The scanner is based on a CCD photoelectric device and can scan images up to an optical resolution of 2400x4800ppi. The maximum document size it can handle is 216x297mm, which is good enough for creating prints up to A3 in size. It connects to a computer using either Full Speed USB 2.0 (12Mbit/s) or Hi-Speed USB 2.0 (480Mbit/s). There's no optional automatic document feeder for high-volume scans, but Epson does offer an optional multi-photo feeder for scanning up to 24 photos (10x15in.) automatically.

If all you want to do is transfer a paper-based document onto your computer in digital format, you simply place the document face-down onto the scanner's platten and press the 'Scan' button. For thick or large documents you can remove the document cover to make it easier to align the document. The Perfection 2480 Photo's driver software then automatically previews the images and recognises the document source and type. The software then opens on your computer and allows you to select further options, such as the file format you want to save the file. It also allows you to scan images in colour, greyscale, or black and white.

To scan film strips or slides you need to remove the reflective document mat from the document cover. This is a simple process of opening the scanner cover and gently sliding up the reflective document mat. You then have to place the supplied 35mm transparency/film unit (supports three strips and two slides) onto the scanning surface in a certain way depending on what you want to scan.

For instance, when you want to scan films in the 'A' area of the film holder, the transparency/film unit needs to be placed so that it is aligned with the lower left corner of the platten. When you want to scan the films in the 'B' area of the transparency/film unit, you need to align it with the lower left corner of the scanner - and so on. If you get the combination wrong, the scan will fail. When not using the film holder, you can store it inside the document cover so you don't lose it.

Once you become a little more familiar with the scanner and the supplied software you can select from three scan modes: Full Auto, Home, and Professional. The Full Auto offers the least flexibility and lets you scan images using automatically-adjusted settings. The Smart Panel window also lets you access the various bundled applications. For instance, by clicking an applications icon you can use the scanner to scan and then send data directly to the application. In addition, you can assign any of the supplied applications to the scanner's Start button, which is a time-saving feature if you regularly use a particular program, such as an OCR application for scanning and saving text documents.

As well as Epson's Smart Panel driver software, the scanner is bundled with a selection of useful utilities. The Copy Center application lets you scan and then print images. You can also copy documents in various sizes, or place several photos on the same page. Before you print an image you can make basic image adjustments using the preview window. ABBY's FineReader Sprint 5.0 is an OCR application that lets you scan and convert images into text, which can then be saved or sent to a word processor for further editing.

ArcSoft's PhotoImpression 5.0 is an easy-to-use image-editing program for scanning and editing photos, and Presto! BizCard can be used to scan business cards and then convert the images into text for organising in the business card application. You can also use the Smart Panel control panel to scan and send images to a specific application for further editing, scan an image and send it as an e-mail attachment, or upload images to Epson's photo-sharing Web site.

In terms of image quality, the Perfection 2480 Photo is a reasonable performer. Of course, image quality isn't that critical if you intend to scan a lot of text or business graphics, but it will be a significant factor for those working with photographs and detailed artwork. While the Perfection 2480 Photo produced good quality scans with decent contrast, brightness and colour levels, there were obvious noise patterns that caused a dithering (pixelated) effect on our test samples.

This was especially noticeable when we printed a scanned image and compared it to the original. In addition, scans lacked crisp edges and lines looked rather jaggy, and images weren't as vibrant or as well saturated as the originals. The scanner's pretty speedy and can scan both photos and slides, but it's held back by mediocre image quality.

Links:
Perfection 2480 Photo Web site