trouble with Epson 4490

[JJ]

Recently picked up an Epson 4490. Although it seems to be scanning photos
ok, I am having trouble getting it to align properly on 35 mm color
negatives. I place the negatives into the holder exactly as in the
instructions. There might be 5 negatives per stripe. The first one
generally aligns ok, but by the third there is a separation between the
third/ fourth negatives. Just to see what would happen, I took one of the
color negative strips and cut it up into its 5 parts and scanned
individually. Worked fine that way. However, I have LOTS of negatives I'm
trying to scan into digital and I don't like the idea of having to cut them
up. These color negatives are from the 1950's- 70's and they are clean.
Any fixes or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
JJ

 

[Barry Watzman]

I don't know how Epson determines where the images are within a strip.
They MIGHT be simply "assuming" some "standard" image-to-image spacing.
The problem is that the image to image spacing is actually set by the
camera that actually took the images, and may not correspond to what
Epson is expecting. FWIW, Nikon scanners sometimes have trouble
separating images and/or finding the initial edge of the first image
also, when using motorized strip feeders.