HP Scanjet G4050 Photo Flatbed Scanner - L1957A#B1H
4800 dpi Optical - USB

I replaced my canon scanner with a HP Scanjet g4050 recently. While it is the largest scanner I've owned in several years, I now need the ability to scan legal size documents, old canon was just too small for that job. But the biggest reason for my purchase was it could handle negatives, slides, etc. Once I got it set up on my new Vista laptop I scanned 85 years lantern slides, the type used to display advertising in silent movie theaters during the 1920’s. To my delight with a little practice I was able to bring several once forgotten images to life. I have used the g4050 to scan various antique slides and negatives with wonderful results. I was not looking for the fastest scanner, I needed a scanner that could work with many types of media and so far it has proven to have been an excellent purchase. I am recommending it to a friend tonight.
 
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Was very well informed when product would be shipped which arrived exactly as promised. Very happy with product
 
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I have owned and use a lot of scanners in my life and this scanner fills my needs and does a great job for odd shaped negative scans, and full framed slide scans - as well as performing great with regular picture and document scans. What my professional film & slide scanner won't do - this fills in the gaps. Scan times are good and quality is great. It is also easy to use. I had no problem installing the scanner - remember to follow the instructions - don't hook up scanner before the installation asks for you to do so.
 
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I read many reviews on this product and some were positive/others negative. I purchased one anyway. The overall experience with this scanner was very bad. The scanner itself was fine, although it did have dirt on the interior top glass. The worst part was the useless, confusing, convoluted, piece of trash software that operates this system. Initial loading would not perform a custom install, so you have to guess what is wrong as the system siezes up on loading. Doing a recommended install works slightly better, but takes forever loading all the extra HP software you don,t need, or so I thought. The software is so convoluted and useless, that if this was the first scanner I ever had, I would never get another one. This is my forth scanner, I know how they should work and it is not like this. I usually love HP, but do yourself a favor and stay far away..
 
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I wanted to give my parents a digital picture frame this Christmas so that they could enjoy all of their old photos that are currently kept in various boxes. A lot of the pictures are cracked & mixed up, but the negatives are in the envelopes from when they were developed. I did lots of research & bought the HP ScanJet G4050 because of its negatives scanning abilities. I set up the scanner and got all of my negatives ready. The trays for holding negatives & slides are well made, fit snugly, and can only be inserted one way. The multi-negative tray holds 5 strips, so I loaded it up. After scanning, I calculated that I was short by seven frames. I looked at the negatives again, recounted the frames, and scanned again. The wonderful HP software decided that I didn't really need all of my frames scanned and dropped off the same seven each time I rescanned. I looked at each negative and there wasn't much difference between frames. I rearranged them and now seven different frames were dropped off! OK, so maybe the negative scanning isn’t great, so I decided to try scanning some of the photos that were in good shape. About half of the time, the photos scanned well with beautiful colors & accuracy. Many other photos showed lots of “snow” on them. I found that I had to clean the glass multiple times between scans or else lint would get picked up and stick to the glass like a magnate. Even with all of my cleaning, I could not eliminate all of the lint marks that showed on the picture image. I rearranged photos and discovered that there was smudging and lint on the factory-sealed underside of the glass! What can I do about that? Turns out this also caused the problems with my negatives. The documentation says that the software can reduce the effect of scratches, straighten crooked pictures, and separate multiple photos. I found this not to be very true. Scratches only seemed to be magnified. I purposely put photos in that were slightly crooked and the software never corrected them even on pictures with lots of vertical & horizontal structures. Frequently when scanning several photos at once, the software would combine them into one large file and I had to break them down manually. A couple of times, a single photo would appear as an image of the entire glass surface with my photo stuck in the middle. Lots of cropping! I have multiple HP computers & printers in my house. After my experience with the G4050, I know I will never buy an HP scanner again. I can’t imagine how HP could create such a bad product - very poor software quality and poor manufacturing standards! This one is going back in the box to be refurbished for some other poor, unsuspecting fool.
 
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I have installed and uninstalled and reinstalled this scanner. During the install an error appears "hp update has encountered a problem and needs to close" Tech support was no help. The Solution will not open. Error appears that says " No HP Devices Detected" Solution Center Will Now Close" I downloaded "HP Full Feature Software from HP Website and it still did not help. This is a photo scanner I cannot use. Any help will be appreciated!
 
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Easy to install and use. Vistadrivers available on the web at teh HP site. Works just like you'd think. I was amazed t how well 50-year-old slides scanned in. Being able to scan 16 at a time give this scanner a huge advantage over it's less expensive cousins. For under $200, can't beat it.
 
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I desperately needed a new scanner but didn't have the time to research all the possibilities. I chose this scanner because it seemed priced right. The day it arrived I put it to use for the few small tasks that waited on my desk. But the big thrill came when I found the rack for scanning 16 (!) slides a a time. I couldn't believe how easy it was. I ran upstairs and got the box of slides that had been waiting for years and in just a few days of spare-time use, I had 1720 slides preserved for the next generation.
 
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I replaced an old HP 5100 scanner with this one because I needed film negative scanning capability and higher resolution. Anything higher resolution than 200 dpi is painfully slow. This is ok for home use but I could not use it in a professional graphics office because of the speed. I like the sleek styling and the features.
 
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