Plustek Opticscan 120 - can't get it to bulk scan either 120 or 135

[CharlesDAMorgan]

I bought this on the recommendation of a photographer friend and from the beginning I've never been able to do more than one image at a time, whether set to scan, bulk scan, or either after a preview. I use Silverfast 8 which came with it.

I love the quality, which is much better than my Epson V800 (although I have to use that for large format until I master digital camera scanning), and would dearly love to get this scanning in bulk, as I haven't the time to cut negative strips into strips of 2, then take them out and re-do.

Any help would be very much appreciated!

 

[Ted Striker]

I bought this on the recommendation of a photographer friend and from the beginning I've never been able to do more than one image at a time, whether set to scan, bulk scan, or either after a preview. I use Silverfast 8 which came with it.

I love the quality, which is much better than my Epson V800 (although I have to use that for large format until I master digital camera scanning), and would dearly love to get this scanning in bulk, as I haven't the time to cut negative strips into strips of 2, then take them out and re-do.

Any help would be very much appreciated!

Silverfast has to be one of the worst pieces of software ever written. It is an appalling pile of garbage that literally ruins the scanning experience.


You can do bulk scans, but I can't recall how to do it from memory. Hopefully someone here can be more accurate than I am.


From my rusty memory, you have to create your list of thumbnail images first. Click on the ones that you want to scan and center as appropriate. This will create a second list of thumbnails. With this list you click on each one, and then make your scanning adjustments. Once you have gone through the list, then you click the play button and the scanner will then go through each frame, make the scan and then create the file.


There's a lot more detail than this, but that is the general overall process.

 

[CharlesDAMorgan]

Silverfast has to be one of the worst pieces of software ever written. It is an appalling pile of garbage that literally ruins the scanning experience.

I couldn't have put it better myself!

Hopefully there will be people with knowledge of the bulkscan function along soon.

 

[CharlesDAMorgan]

Quick bump

 

[fs999]

This is not possible with this scanner as it uses fixed length holders. So you have to cut your film.
You have to do it for archiving, so where is the problem ?

 

[CharlesDAMorgan]

I cut it in to lengths of six, but it will only scan negative 1, hence having to cut it into strips of 2, so I can scan one, then reverse it to scan the other.

 

[hanskerensky]

Opticscan 120 ??
Do not now that scanner but on a OpticFilm 120 you have to use the "Overview" button and then select frames and then (from memory) "add all" .
Will have a look at it this evening to see the exact names.

 

[CharlesDAMorgan]

Opticfilm - apologies! That would be extremely helpful, thank you!

 

[hanskerensky]

Well, one evening too late but just had a look.
First you hit the "overview" button which is situated at the bottom of the vertical "commands" column.


A pop-up "Overview dialog" screen appears and the scanner will start a preview run of all the frames.
At the end of that run all found frames are displayed as small thumbnails.
With the small left right buttons underneath each thumbnail you can give for that frame a scanner offset if desired.


By default each displayed thumbnail is selected (blue border), however you can deselect a frame by clicking on it (border turns white).


Next click "Add selection" and a pop-up screen of the "Jobmanager" opens.
In this Jobmanager it is possible to copy certain parameters of a frame to the other ones by clicking on the "double folder" icon just next to the thumbnail.


Of course there is much more to it then this short description as Silvefast is indeed not the simplest of tools as stated here in the comments before.

 

[CharlesDAMorgan]

thanks very much! I have some scanning to do today so I'll give that a whirl.