I have HP's PhotoSmart S 28 negative scanner. It worked well until it refused accept the calibration card it requested. So, I bought HP's 4890. BIG MISTAKE! I want to scan B&W 35 mm negs. It refuses; sees only color; displays the B&W scans in RED! And scans at 300dpi, no higher, although it says it can (I have 2 GB RAM on my Dell 8250).

Buying this otherwise very versatile scanner for what I need (B&W 35mm neg scans) was a huge mistake. BIG. It has TOO MANY FEATURES. Shoulda gotten a dedicated neg scanner. Shoulda, coulda, DIDN'T <sigh>.
Any comments, ideas, offers!?

Check out my B&W scans here: http://community.webshots.com/user/bluegrassphotos

They are good!

Marshall, nice B&W images. My experience has been that if you want to get really good scans of negatives or slides, you really need a dedicated scanner. They scan at resolutions between 2400 and 5000 ppi which is whaat you need for decent 8 x 10 prints or larger. Dedicated scanners have a higher dynamic range than flat beds or flat beds with adapters. Furthermore if you buy a good quality scanner like Nikon Coolscan, they come with Digital ICE s/w which can save you huge amounts of time because the s/w can clone out pinholes and fine dust spots on the fly. The s/w can also overcome other problems associated with weak or color shifted emulsions.
Regards, Murray

ICE won't work for b/w negs (silver negs anyway, chromogenic is fine).

As for not scanning in b/w and at 300ppi, I don't use HP, but many scanner drivers have a "pro" or "advanced" mode that unhides features that might scare off beginners. Snoop around and see if your HP scanning software doesn't have something similar. You should be able to get decent scans from that (although I'll agree that a dedicated film scanner would be better, but they also have their own idiosyncracies).

I've just joined this forum. I too bought an HP 4890, in January. From the very first, there was a software conflict. I could only access the scanner through one of my photo editing programs, and the results were limited. HP Tech support was useless. Their repeated mantra was uninstall, then re-install. I did that about 6 times, with no positive result. I tried phone conversations with HP. I think their Customer Service could best be described as Customer Non-service. In desperation last week, I took the HP 4890 back to the Staples store where purchased, and told my story to the manager. He gave me a full refund and said he would deal with HP. and that he was hearing about a lot of discontent with HP customer service.

I then purchased from the same store an Epson Perfection 4490 Photo with ICE technology. It is vastly superior to the HP and and actually cost slightly less. It is simple to use, but the scans are crisp, with extremely good sharp copying of color. Robt

NOW he tells me!!!

No, thank you for confirming what I believed but doubted. You are correct about HP's Non-Customer Service: TERRIBLE!

I'll save up my $ and get a true dedicated negative scanner ASAP.

The Nikon seems like the way to go. Y'get what y'pay fer, is the lesson learned here.