64 bit drivers for Cool Scan V

biomed

biomed

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I just built a 64 bit computer system. I have found 64 bit drivers for everything but my Nikon Cool Scan V. Nikon offered no help. I am considering using Vuescan. It seems like a good deal for the money. Any pros or cons? I also had to upgrade to Lightroom 2 and Photoshop CS4, so I am on a bit of a budget restriction.

Thanks in advance,

Mike
 
You could use Vuescan, or you could try the 32bit drivers. The traditional wisdom is that 32 bit drivers won't work in a 64bit environment, but in practice they work fine a lot of the time.
 
You also could've kept using your old photoshop, even though it might not 'support' 64bit. The performance increases aren't that substantial anyways. Adobe says something like 8% performance increase. In reality 64bit helps if you have over 4gb of ram (in windows) or over 32gb of ram (in Os X).

Also, there are less filters that work in 64bit Photoshop.
 
Scanners (with the exception of former 100,000€ gear from the eighties) don't need what a computer systems architect would consider a driver, but talk SCSI, Firewire or USB - the "driver" (TWAIN or whatever) is just a software shim in userland, and as far as TWAIN is concerned, decently programmed "drivers" (or rather, scan utilities) still work even if they date back to 16bit days. Quality is the key - I've seen a poorly coded 64bit program fail over the quite minor update from Vista SP1 to Win7.

Sevo
 
Mephiloco said:
You could use Vuescan, or you could try the 32bit drivers. The traditional wisdom is that 32 bit drivers won't work in a 64bit environment, but in practice they work fine a lot of the time.
Click to expand...

The Nikon "driver" would not load on my system - I assume that it will not work on Windows 7 either.
 
biomed said:
The Nikon "driver" would not load on my system - I assume that it will not work on Windows 7 either.
Click to expand...

The driver bit from Nikon is quite irrelevant (what you really want is their software). For one, the driver mostly works, it merely refuses to install. For the other, it can be replaced by other drivers - the one from Vuescan would do for most Nikon scanners:

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=59380

Some people have even hacked up a new inf file to get around the signature problem:

http://www.earthboundlight.com/phototips/coolscan-vista-64.html
 
sevo said:
The driver bit from Nikon is quite irrelevant (what you really want is their software). For one, the driver mostly works, it merely refuses to install. For the other, it can be replaced by other drivers - the one from Vuescan would do for most Nikon scanners:

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=59380

Some people have even hacked up a new inf file to get around the signature problem:

http://www.earthboundlight.com/phototips/coolscan-vista-64.html
Click to expand...


Thanks, sevo. I will look a little closer at the threads when I get home. I will probably download the trial version of Vuescan and then load the Nikon software sans the drivers.

Mike
 
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