Any news on the new Plustek 120 scanner?

I purchased the Optifilm 7600i, which I have yet to use. Have a 9000ED and Epson V750 Pro. I was going to use it for one-off quick scans. Silverfast was an absolute must have in that I needed the drivers to get VueScan to work. Love Vuescan... hope that drivers will be supplied separately for the new scanner. Right now, I have Vuescan working on a Mac, A PC and a Ubuntu Linux machine.
 
Jamie123 said:
I've never seen a scanner being sold without a software to run it and I have yet to see a scanner bundled with Vuescan. Be realistic, people.

Besides it's not clear yet whether the scanner will come with Silverfast 8 Ai or SE. Ai as a standalone version costs $500 while SE costs $50. If it comes bundled with SE it's likely you're not paying that much for the software to be included.
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Plustek could offer its own driver and support it with free upgrades to keep up with newer operating systems etc. Just like Canon and Epson does. Not that they are the great pieces of software but its at least something that works and does't require the ripp off by SF.

It they really want to make a difference and totally stand out from the competition. Invest in software engineers and have them build excellent software. There is a huge need for an alternative to the current offerings.
 
Really, I don't care.

Not that I'm filthy rich or like to waste my limited cash, but I really need a scanner like this and will pay the price while subsequently shelving SF indefinitely in favor of VS.

I'm setting myself up in traditional (read: Rolleiflex and film Leica) photography and the moment where I need to be able to deliver 'as Hi-Res as possible' scans is rapidly approaching. My current 1200dpi Microtek delivers 6.1MP files from Rolleiflexes and it's too small for bigger sized prints. I can crank it up to 17x17" when using 140dpi, that's max. Soon they'll be asking me for 35x35" prints, yikes.

Once I sell that extra print, SF will already be paid for. Bring on the Plustek 120! 😀
 
I'm looking forward to this scanner landing. It's important for the future of film, I think.

I've never got on with Silverfast, or it's pricing (gouging) policy and now use vuescan with my 9000 (on a 64 bit Win 7 machine). However, I've just received an email saying that SF are hosting a new book on SF8 by Mark Segal (LL contributor) that covers all the functionality in detail. It seems you have to pay extrqa for the manual now (this should be a giveaway really), but at least there is a manual.
 
sojournerphoto said:
I'm looking forward to this scanner landing. It's important for the future of film, I think.

I've never got on with Silverfast, or it's pricing (gouging) policy and now use vuescan with my 9000 (on a 64 bit Win 7 machine). However, I've just received an email saying that SF are hosting a new book on SF8 by Mark Segal (LL contributor) that covers all the functionality in detail. It seems you have to pay extrqa for the manual now (this should be a giveaway really), but at least there is a manual.
Click to expand...

Oh come on. Now you're just bashing SF for the sake of it. That book is not an official SF manual just like the Vuescan bible is not by Ed Hamrick and is not included with the purchase. SF has lots of instruction videos and I'm sure they have their own manual.
 
Jamie123 said:
I've never seen a scanner being sold without a software to run it and I have yet to see a scanner bundled with Vuescan. Be realistic, people.

Besides it's not clear yet whether the scanner will come with Silverfast 8 Ai or SE. Ai as a standalone version costs $500 while SE costs $50. If it comes bundled with SE it's likely you're not paying that much for the software to be included.
Click to expand...

It's good to have competition.

Locking in to SF as part of a hardware scheme is not competition, and the SF upgrade thing alienated a substantial number of users, not based on the quality of their product and interface, but on their pay 2x for the same product machinations due to OS upgrades long-expected.
 
Aristophanes said:
It's good to have competition.

Locking in to SF as part of a hardware scheme is not competition, and the SF upgrade thing alienated a substantial number of users, not based on the quality of their product and interface, but on their pay 2x for the same product machinations due to OS upgrades long-expected.
Click to expand...

Oh I fully agree. Lasersoft's pricing policy is disgusting across the board. They charge a fortune for a simple scanning software and then they have the audacity to restrict it to a single scanner model and charge for basic compatibility updates. Not to mention that their affordable SE version is simply not available for advanced scanners such as the Nikon CS9000.

That being said, even though I think it could be much better, when I have actually used SF (SF SE and SF HDR) I have found it to be quite a decent program. The UI is nothing to write home about but it is somewhat better than Vuescan's and so are their NegaFix profiles.

I would really love for there to be more competition when it comes to scanning software but I guess the market is just not attractive enough. What would be awesome is if Ed Hamrick could get together with someone who specializes in creating good interfaces. I'd even pay extra for a software like that!
 
The only problem that I have ever had with Vuescan is with respect to batch scanning. For example, I'm having problems getting it to scan all frames on my V750. No probem with the 9000ED, or previous Vuescan versions. Enough to make me pull my hair out, but for the most part, it has been a wonderful piece of software.
 
In SilverFast's defence, I have never had any issues with the software while working with the Plustek 7600Ai.

On the other hand, Vuescan has its quirks in that it sometimes communicates in some weird way with my older Canoscan 9000F and resulting in weird scans that defies logic. Thus forcing me to resort to using Canon's software that somehow resets the scanner such that Vuescan works with it again. Never mind the need to sometimes reset Vuescan. On the otherhand, with Silverfast, I haven't had much issues.

If you are going to bash the interface, in my opinion both have their stupid quirks, and quite frankly bashing either or the other just smacks of the usual nonsensical Canon vs Nikon rivalry.
 
I have used SilverFast with Microtek F1 and it was unstable (10 scans would be about max before it would crash) - it was SLOW to react and the design leaves a lot to be desired. Features were OK - actually more that one would want to use.

Needles to say that I also tested Vuescan and the design part wasn't much better.

I would personally prefer if the Plustek would come with a robust software that would have the basic necessary features implemented in a sensible way and would not try to include every feature they could think of.
 
As long as the scanner isn't locked into Silverfast I'll be happy. I find the results from Vuescan to be better in 90% of cases, but when I was tempted to buy Silverfast to cover the other 10% I was horrified to see the scandalous pricing policy which simply ramps up the price depending on the cost of the original hardware. The whole philosophy is despicable, and they lost me right there.
 
I made my peace with SF 6.6 after using just once the Epson software that came with my V750. It was like learning a different language to use SF but - in spite of "quirks" - I like the features.

Their pricing scheme is rough but keep in mind that incorporating the cost within the cost of hardware makes it an inexpensive starter. It's upgrading that is the killer.

I haven't moved to 8 yet and am waiting for the pricing of the Plustek 120 to make that decision.
 
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