Any reason not to get a plustek 7600i?

Ok I can come up with a reason not to buy a Plustek 7600i, I purchased one from BHphoto last week turns out that the CD that installs silverfast is not recognised by any of my Macs - iMac and macbook air with external disc drive. Indeed judging from the manual it looks like this is a known problem. Even whilst using disk utility and trying to manually mount the CD nothing happens it just ends up with a rainbow beachball. So I tried to register my serial number on the website bearing in mind I had version 6.6 which is entitled to a free upgrade to version 8. Everything went quite well and I even go to download Version 8 from the website. However once I tried to start scanning it required the original installation CD to be inserted, and of course that wasn't going to work. So now I am left with a scanner that is utterly useless unless I purchase Vuescan or pray that the support at Silverfast is more timely.

Anyone experienced this?
 
Silverfast is a two edged sword.

The interface is something of a train wreck and Lasersoft will try to rob the eyeballs out of your head at any given opportunity.

But the HDR multi exposure feature is hard to beat. I ran the SF8 demo with my 9000ED and the amount of DR that it was able to pull off the negative was staggering. Also very low noise.

My advice if you are scanning b/w with SF? Turn off all the bells and whistles and make a linear scan with multi exposure.
 
I chose a V700 instead of a Plustek, mostly because I also do medium format.

If I was scanning only 135 film, I would have gone with the Plustek, which has better scans for 135 film than the V700.

I would think about workflow if you use the Plustek. The V700 does batch scans beautifully, but I wouldn't scan every frame on a Plustek. I would have some other way of proofing and selecting a few frames per roll for hi-res scanning.

One easy way is to lay your negative film on a light table and take a picture of it with a digital camera. Invert with something like Photoshop Elements. You can "proof" a whole roll like this with one shot, leaving the film in a plastic archival holder, and end up with images of about 200x300 pixels per frame. This you can view at 100% on your computer. This is a lot more of a view than people ever got with the traditional 8x10 proof sheet, viewed with a loupe. With transparency film, you could proof on a light table with a loupe.

Either way, you end up with maybe 3-6 frames per roll for hi-res scanning.

Another option, especially if you are doing color film processed by someone like Dwayne's, is to get cheapie lo-res scans from your film processor. This might cost about $3 per roll. Use these lo-res scans to choose your best frames, and just scan those on the Plustek.

The last thing I would suggest, if you want to do 12x18 prints from 135 film, is to send it out to someone like North Coast Photo, who will put it in their Noritsu and scan it at 16+ megapixels for $2.50 a frame. Precision Camera might offer a similar service, with 26+mp resolution. 12x18 is really pushing it for 135, and you would only do a few frames, so this might make more sense than trying to squeeze every last bit of resolution from a sub-$1000 scanner.
 
Great, just got my brand new Plustek 7600i, installed Silverfast SE and when I try to launch it, it just quits while loading. OS X 10.5.8, I've had a 7500i before and had Silverfast AI installed, deleted it after I sold the scanner. Bugger.

Maybe it's a sign I should just get Vuescan instead and be happy with it...
 
SO I just downloaded Vuescan and installed it, downloaded the 32bit driver from the Plustek website, tried opening Vuescan using Rosetta but it crashes, I've searched for Rosetta on spotlight but got no matches, it's a bundled software for Leopard, I don't get how it can't be found...

I'm thinking about just formatting my macbook pro, getting everything from scratch and see if it works out, but man, is this frustrating or what..
 
plustek 7600i inoperable

plustek 7600i inoperable

Hi. I also have an inoperable plustek 7600i. Silverfast stopped working and Vuescan does not see the scanner.

Vuescan is giving the following error: "VueScan found a Plustek 7600i, but wasn't able to find a 64-bit Intel plugin for this scanner. Try downloading a 64-bit Intel driver for this scanner from www.plustek.com. To try to use the 32-bit Intel plugin, click on the VueScan icon while holding the control key, choose 'Get Info' and check the 'Open in 32-bit mode' box."

I do not find the driver in the plustek website and I have tried the 32-bit mode but it does not work either. I am running lion on a macbook air but it has happened also in another portable mac which is not a macbook air. Am I missing something?

Thanks for any help.
 
update: still running 10.5.8, but formatted my macbook and reinstalled everything. followed the tip of installing the silverfast 8 demo, then vuescan 64bit and it worked like a charm!

must say vuescan blows silverfast away, i was never satisfied with the tones i would get with silverfast ai... vuescan is lighter, easier to use and i'm getting much better scans. VERY satisfied!!!
 
Green_Blue said:
Ok I can come up with a reason not to buy a Plustek 7600i, I purchased one from BHphoto last week turns out that the CD that installs silverfast is not recognised by any of my Macs - iMac and macbook air with external disc drive. Indeed judging from the manual it looks like this is a known problem. Even whilst using disk utility and trying to manually mount the CD nothing happens it just ends up with a rainbow beachball. So I tried to register my serial number on the website bearing in mind I had version 6.6 which is entitled to a free upgrade to version 8. Everything went quite well and I even go to download Version 8 from the website. However once I tried to start scanning it required the original installation CD to be inserted, and of course that wasn't going to work. So now I am left with a scanner that is utterly useless unless I purchase Vuescan or pray that the support at Silverfast is more timely.

Anyone experienced this?
Click to expand...


Did you ever get your problem resolved? If not, drop me a note: markdruziak at plustek.com

Mark
 
I was looking at the 8200i model, and it appears to have a built-in infrared channel to aid in dust correction. Am I correct in thinking this is the only difference between the 7600i and the 8200i?

Cheers,

db
 
dogbunny said:
I was looking at the 8200i model, and it appears to have a built-in infrared channel to aid in dust correction. Am I correct in thinking this is the only difference between the 7600i and the 8200i?

Cheers,

db
Click to expand...



The IR channel is there since 7500i, which is what I've got..
 
dogbunny said:
Thanks, weird how they explicitly mention it in the 8200i description, but not the other. Looks like the price tag will be the determining factor. Cool.

db
Click to expand...



I don't think the hardware has changed for years, but the newer models have newer software in the bundle.
 
Back to the original topic of this thread.

I have a v700 ans a Plustek 7600i. The 35mm scans from the Plustek are a little bit better (read sharper) compared to those i get from my v700 with glass inserts. The difference is especially visible pixel peeping at 100%. I am talking straight B&W scans without manipulation by the scanner software here. If you proces and sharpen the files in Photoshop and print the files the difference is not nearly as big as you might expect from reading the forums.
The downside of the Plustek is the 1 frame at a time scanning (automatic feeding would not change much) and the horrible software you have to use (Both: Vuescan and Silverfast).
Makes me just realise how good the Epson software is for straight B&W scans and how convenient the batch scanning is.

So is the Plustek better than an Epson V700/V750 for scanning 35mm: Yes a little bit.
Question to be answered is if squeezing a few more pixels from your negatives is worh the inconvenience and time it takes to scan with the Plustek and Silverfast or Vuescan.
 
gavinlg said:
The plustek 8000 series has just been announced - better DR and optics apparently. That's probably a good reason not to get the 7000 series!
Click to expand...

Source?
According to Mark from Plustek it is exactly the same hardware as Plustek 7400 or 7600 only different software (Silverfast 8), which you can also get as a free upgrade if you bought your plustek 7600 after june 2011.
 
update: been scanning some old negs that din't get much attention by the time they were developed in 2009, using vuescan. very, very satisfied!!!
 
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