Expression 836XL conveys more for less - from Epson America - Product Announcement

Epson America Inc.'s Expression 836XL has all the typical features a graphics professional might expect in a flatbed scanner: 36-bit color, a 3.3 dynamic range, an excellent driver, and bundled software that includes a color calibration utility and Adobe Photoshop LE. But what's not typical is its size and price: Large enough to scan tabloid-size images, the 836XL has a $2,500 street price.

It has an optical resolution of 800 by 1,600 dpi with a maximum interpolated resolution of 6,400 by 6,400 dpi. Measuring 26 by 18 by 7 inches and weighing 44 pounds, this scanner takes up a lot of space.

The 836XL is surprisingly fast, able to preview the entire scanner platen in 15 seconds and to scan an 8-by-10-inch image at 800 dpi in two minutes, 15 seconds.

Its scans were mostly consistent over the entire 12.2-by-7.2-inch scan bed's imaging area, with only some minor focusing and registration problems near the edges.

Epson's Twain Pro driver has a full set of basic scanner controls in a standard Twain-compliant plug-in. But for serious work, you'll want to use LaserSoft International Inc.'s included SilverFast driver, which has a range of powerful controls in a large window.

With basic scans, the SilverFast driver will adjust color levels and curves automatically when you click its AutoAdjust button after you've selected the image area on the 836XL's platen. For a wider range of automatic image adjustment options, you can pick an image type from a pop-up menu, which offers landscape, skin tones and evening options, among others. Selecting an image adjustment option applies predefined color correction settings appropriate for the image's most likely problems. As you might expect, these features are best used on evenly lit images.

For more difficult scans, you'll want to use the SilverFast driver's correction controls. These include Gradation for setting color curves and levels; Selective Color Correction for adjusting any color within the scan; and Unsharp Mask for sharpening a contour. We were particularly pleased with the sharpening quality and the separate, smaller window SilverFast provides for previewing its sharpening effects.

In addition to scanning images in RGB, you can set SilverFast to scan using a ColorSync profile, in CIELAB mode or in a special Plug and Play CMYK mode that displays your image in a CMYK preview. While this last feature is clever, it has little advantage over scanning and correcting the image in RGB mode and converting it to CMYK in Photoshop.

Though the SilverFast driver's default focus settings provide good image detail, you can change its focus. For most images, we found the default focus settings to be fine. However, if you're scanning a 3-D object or if you have a bent or buckled photograph or transparency, the focus options can improve your scan. In some instances, changing the focus also gave us a better scan of low-contrast, underexposed images.

Transparently clear

You can replace the 836XL's cover with an optional $500 transparency adapter that lets you scan transparencies as large as 11.4 by 16.8 inches. Epson includes sturdy, easy-to-handle transparency holders for 35mm, mounted 35mm, 4-by-5-inch and medium-format strips.

When scanning transparencies, we were impressed with the 836XL's detail and color fidelity. A 36-bit scan of a color negative yielded an image with extraordinary color breadth. But as we expected, the transparency scans were not as sharp as those we'd get with a similarly priced slide scanner.

Conclusions

The 836XL is a fast, powerful B-size scanner that produces astonishingly good images. The attractive price is a bonus.

Epson America Inc. of Torrance, Calif., is at (310) 782-0770 or (800) 463-7766 ; fax (310) 782-5220; http://www.epson.com.

Expression 836XL

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Expression 836XL ****

Epson America Inc. Street price: $2,500*

Hits: Fast; versatile; very good driver software; attractive price for tabloid-size scanner.

Misses: Minor focusing and registration problems near bed edges; for transparency scanning, not as good as similarly priced slide scanners.

*Optional transparency adapter, $500.

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