Is Vue Scan really the best software out there?

[Bob Michaels]

Bob, I find this very interesting, could you please elaborate?

I use the SilverFast software that came with my scanner (Plustek 7600i) and try to control contrast and colour and crop during the scanning -- I just never got the idea to scan 'raw' and adjust later.

What are the advantages of your method?

What image manipulation program do you use?

Thanks!

OK. First it is important to understand what the scanner does (and does not do) and what the scanner software does. The scanner shines a light through your neg or positive and reads the detailed shadow on a sensor. That is all. It then passes this data back to the CPU. Note: it does not know or care if it is a neg or a slide, RGB or monochrome, or even how it is cropped. high rez or low rez, It sends this unmanipulated data back to the scanner software in the CPU.

Then the scanner software can adjust the cropping, make it a positive or negative image, convert the RGB data to monochrome if desired, downsize the file if needed to be lower rez, and output that file as either 8 bit or 16 bit.

But, the scanner software can do, and often automatically, does more. It can crop it to what it thinks is the edge of the actual image. It can apply standard "this usually works" adjustments to your file. It can set the endpoints of the the histogram (levels). It can adjust the contrast. It can tweak the color balance. It can sharpen the file. Sometimes you do not even know the scanner software is doing this because you cannot turn it off. Hence my analogy to a JPG coming out of a digital camera. This is good for those who want a quick acceptable file with no additional processing in an image editor. And, this is great for those people who evaluate scanner software by how good the initial output looks.

Other scanner software (Vuescan) acknowledges that you may be better at doing all those adjustments manually. So it allows you to turn everything off that you don't want. This is good for those people who know that once data is clipped off the end of a histogram, it cannot never be recovered. This is good for those who know that any adjustment like color balance or contrast to counteract a previous adjustment never gets you back to the quality file you started with.

Vuescan does have many manual adjustments. These are for those folks who do not use image editors but want something better than the auto adjustments. Few people use these Vuescan manual adjustments because they know they cannot see the real impact, cannot control them very well, and cannot undo them since they are included in the outputted file. Instead they do all those adjustments themselves in their image editor.

I have been using Vuescan and Photoshop for about 10 years now. No intention of changing anything.

 

[brbo]

VueScan is not the only software that can do raw or linear scan. Almost any scanner+scan program that can scan slide film can produce linear or "linear" scan.

You then have to invert linear scan of a negative manually in Photoshop or using ColorPerfect (ex ColorNeg/NegPos) Photoshop plug-in, standalone NegFix script or some other method. You can invert VueScan raw file later in VueScan or invert SilverFast raw scan file in SilverFast (but you need expensive (what's up with those guys?!) SilverFast HDR module, too).

Nice thing about VueScan (and SilverFast) raw scans is that you can apply dust removal (if you choose to record the IR sensor output at scanning), grain reduction, downsampling, play with inverting with any available parameter etc. without reading the film again. You just instruct VueScan to take input from raw file and not from scanner. So everything is very quick after initial raw scan. Raw 64bit scans do take a lot of space.

Inverting linear scan is IMHO the hardest step. If you master that, I think this workflow is worth the trouble. I can't say I'm anywhere near that yet. Still struggling to preserve the film type characteristics. I can easily end up with Ektar looking virtually the same as Portra NC after inverting. I don't see much point in making Ektar look like Ektar later in Photoshop/Lightroom/... My local lab does 135 negative film scanning quite cheaply (3 EUR/roll) and I like the results. Decent resolution (3300x2200px) and nice colors but over-sharpened and high contrast (I like them like that, but for someone else this would probably be bad). I'm trying to recreate this look with scanning at home. For 120 film the same lab does terrible scans and at 3 EUR per shot not really an option.

 

[TareqPhoto]

Epson Scan for my Epson scan-ner.

 

[Harry Lime]

I used Vuescan for some time and then gave Silverfast a try.

Vuescan is reliable and delivers good results, but the GUI is a throwback to the 1990's.

The Silverfast GUI looks like it was designed by a 10th grader, the sales strategy of the company is questionable, but in the end the new HDR / mutiexposure feature is pretty astonishing.

I've run some tests with my Nikon scanners and SF and the dynamic range of the scans is hard to beat. You get flat, linear scans like you would from a drumscanner, but the amount of shadow and highlight detail they contain is worth putting up with the rest of the nonsense.

Just be aware that Silverfast will try to force you to buy progressively more expensive versions of their software, based on what scanner you own.

If Vuescan would add a multi exposure mode, I would go back to them in a heartbeat, mainly because I don't like the business practices of Silverfast.

 

[Harry Lime]

VueScan is not the only software that can do raw or linear scan. Almost any scanner+scan program that can scan slide film can produce linear or "linear" scan.

You can force Silverfast to apply a linear curve (i.e. none / totally neutral) to a scan, instead of one of their canned film response curves, but it is buried 5 menus down and poorly labeled.

 

[Ade-oh]

If Vuescan would add a multi exposure mode, I would go back to them in a heartbeat, mainly because I don't like the business practices of Silverfast.

The version of Vuescan I use does have a multi-exposure mode: is this different to what Silverfast does?

 

[Harry Lime]

The version of Vuescan I use does have a multi-exposure mode: is this different to what Silverfast does?

Is it multisample or a bracketed exposure that is recombined in to a single image?

 

[Ade-oh]

Is it multisample or a bracketed exposure that is recombined in to a single image?

Hmmm, looking at the user guide for Vuescan version 9.0.40 it seems that it 'multi-samples' and then produces an 'average' exposure. Does that sound sensible?

 

[pobe]

I think VueScan can do both multisample and combine bracketed exposures?

 

[Bob Michaels]

.............................. If Vuescan would add a multi exposure mode, I would go back to them in a heartbeat, mainly because I don't like the business practices of Silverfast.

Harry: why don't you just download the free demo version of Vuescan and see what it does with your scanner. It does work a bit differently with different scanners.

I am reasonably knowledgeable about Vuescan but I am not sure what the difference is between "multi exposure" and "bracketed exposures"

I tried using the "multi exposure" option in Vuescan many years ago. I could make it work and generate a very long tonal range. But no matter what I did in post processing , the final output never looked natural to me.

 

[pobe]

If I've understood correctly, multisample reads the same pixel multiple times and does some kind of average - useful for eliminating noise and such. Multiexposure would be combining two (or more, I guess) different exposures of the whole picture to increase the tonal range - like an HDR.

 

[Bob Michaels]

If I've understood correctly, multisample reads the same pixel multiple times and does some kind of average - useful for eliminating noise and such. Multiexposure would be combining two (or more, I guess) different exposures of the whole picture to increase the tonal range - like an HDR.

Yes, Vuescan can do both multi sampling and multi exposure. Multi exposure is two passes, multi sampling is as many passes as you want (or, have time for)

 

[Harry Lime]

Hmmm, that's odd. I own a copy of Vuescan Pro, but don't recall seeing a bracketed multi-exposure feature. Multisampling, yes; but not the other.

I'll have to take another look.

thanks.

 

[Bob Michaels]

Hmmm, that's odd. I own a copy of Vuescan Pro, but don't recall seeing a bracketed multi-exposure feature. Multisampling, yes; but not the other.

I'll have to take another look.

thanks.

Harry: Look under the input tab. It is right by the multisampling option box.

Note that Vuescan's options change with the specific scanner and other options specified. I could not find the Multi Exposure box until I deselected the "scan from preview" option. Then it appeared.

 

[Harry Lime]

Found it. I'm running 5000ED and 9000ED.
Let me give it a try...

thanks!

 

[rogerzilla]

The colour balance can be way off with VueScan. My scans from Reala are magenta and need +35 green and -10 yellow in Photoshop to get them right.

 

[AusDLK]

Can someone be specific about how to get "raw" scans using Silverfast?