VueScan Support for OpticFilim 120

[dougwillobee]

Ed mentioned that he was working on this...now I see the release note for the most recent release lists the OpticFilm 120 as supported. That was fast!

I haven't tried it yet, but having struggled with SilverFast for the last 3 weeks, I cannot tell you how happy this news makes me.😎

Doug

 

[cabbiinc]

I'm surprised nobody has commented on this.

 

[Particular]

I spoke with Mark Druziak from Plustek last week at the PhotoPlus expo in NYC last week. He suggested this was about to happen.

 

[hanskerensky]

Great news !
Must try it out and compare to Silverfast one of these days.

 

[kanzlr]

Unfortunately it does not work yet.
When starting a preview scan, the scanner pulles in the holder, the motor makes a few sounds, and is moving the thing around a bit and after a while it ejects. No preview scan done.

I wonder why it is already in the list of supported scanners.

 

[hanskerensky]

Unfortunately it does not work yet.
When starting a preview scan, the scanner pulles in the holder, the motor makes a few sounds, and is moving the thing around a bit and after a while it ejects. No preview scan done.

I wonder why it is already in the list of supported scanners.

I tried Vuescan on the Opticfilm 120 some months ago (just curiousity). It did make a preview then like scanning a reflective flatbed. Normal scan was not possible however.

Just recently saw in the Windows log that there also had been a Vuescan registration issue at that time with a driver which also seems to be used by Silverfast.

 

[kanzlr]

being on a Mac, that at least is not the problem. But I could try the Windows 8 notebook.

 

[alltag]

But I could try the Windows 8 notebook.

That would be fine.
Btw VueScan 9.3.19 is the latest version (October 30, 2013).
http://www.hamrick.com/vuescan/vuescan.htm#changes

 

[hanskerensky]

Ok, this evening did the first scans with the latest Vuescan and it really did work 🙂

http://www.flickr.com/photos/29504544@N08/10596998155/

Maybe a bit too early (after just 3 scans) to say but first impressions compared to Silverfast :

Pro's :
Much faster in post-scan processing.
Not so demanding on PC memory (i run Windows 7, 32 bit).

Con's :
Colors look greater in Silverfast scan.
Medium IR Dust reduction doesn't remove dust as well as in Silverfast and...
... probably because of that the anti-aliazing effect is less.
Still doesn't switch of the sleepmode timer of the OP120 so when waiting a bit too long between scans the OP120 goes in sleeping mode and has to be manually awakened again.

 

[alltag]

@hanskerensky:
What about scanner profiling?
Have you done it with VueScan?
I ask you, because VueScan does not support scanner profiles that have been made with SilverFast!

The professional version of VueScan can apply custom scanner profiles, but only profiles made with VueScan. If a scanner profile made with other software is assigned, the default “Built-in” profile that comes with VueScan is used and there is no warning message that the assigned profile is not used. VueScan creates matrix profiles for a scanner.

There is no information about this fact in the VueScan documentation. In my case (I have no Plustek 120, yet, but several other film scanners) this was the reason for differing colors comparing to SilverFast scans.

It is possible to use the SilverFast IT8 target which came with the Scanner, but you must download the corresponding reference file from the SilverFast Web site.
http://www.silverfast.com/it8calibration/en.html

VueScan Scanner profiling with IT8 targets:
http://www.hamrick.com/vuescan/html/vuesc16.htm#topic13

 

[hanskerensky]

@hanskerensky:
What about scanner profiling?
Have you done it with VueScan?
I ask you, because VueScan does not support scanner profiles that have been made with SilverFast!

No, i have done no profiling, just installed the latest Vuescan (i did buy the professional version years ago) yesterday evening and made some scans.
IT8 profiling normally is used for positive film and i did scan a negative.
Tweaked the colors a little to get them closer to an earlier Silverfast scan and changed output from sRGB to Adobe (i use PSE for post-processing).
Film negative settings for Fujifilm Reala 100 latest Generation.

 

[alltag]

IT8 profiling normally is used for positive film and i did scan a negative.

That's right.

Nevertheless, in my experience profiling the scanner in general is usefull - because the hardware allways causes color variations in the RAW data. In my opinion VueScan recalculates the colors depending on the Color->Negative->Vendor/Brand/Type after correcting the colors of the RAW data with the scanner profile. But I can also be wrong ... must ask Ed Hamrick for it.

 

[lawrence]

If you're not familiar with VueScan I'd like to recommend The VueScan Bible, until I read that I had no idea how flexible VueScan is. You may find that with some tweaking you can get the colours to be as good or better than in SF. Now that the horrible SF is no longer mandatory I'll probably buy one of these scanners. I'm wondering which is the best supplier in the UK.

 

[cabbiinc]

IT8 profiling normally is used for positive film and i did scan a negative.

IT8 profiling is usually performed with a slide film, but it works just as well for a negative film. It's basically telling the software how much of a shift the scanners colors are. This works for both positive and negative film since the software is expecting the colors coming from the scanner are correct, and profiling brings it all in line.

 

[hanskerensky]

IT8 profiling is usually performed with a slide film, but it works just as well for a negative film. It's basically telling the software how much of a shift the scanners colors are. This works for both positive and negative film since the software is expecting the colors coming from the scanner are correct, and profiling brings it all in line.

With the Silverfast software it is only possible to use an IT8 target profile while scanning positive color (slide) film. I'm not sure about Vuescan however, must try that out.

 

[Harry Lime]

I hope adds a multipass HRD scan mode to Vuescan. I spoke to him a few months ago about this and he was convinced that a single pass was sufficient to grab all the DR on the neg. Now, we all love Ed, but of course that is not correct. Maybe if enough people petition him he may change his mind,,,

But it is good to hear that Vuescan now supports the 120, because Silverfast is junk.

 

[johnny.moped]

With the Silverfast software it is only possible to use an IT8 target profile while scanning positive color (slide) film. I'm not sure about Vuescan however, must try that out.

That's because it only makes sense with slide film.

 

[kanzlr]

Why? I want my negatives to have correct colour when scanned. Otherwise inverting them means inverting a flawed base.

 

[johnny.moped]

Why? I want my negatives to have correct colour when scanned. Otherwise inverting them means inverting a flawed base.

First of all, IT8 profiling is not an exact "science". It's more a guesstimation.

Second, for IT8 profiling to work correctly you will have to profile every film type (even better every batch). So profiling one type of slide film does not necessarily lead to good results for another type of slide film.

Third, color negative film has a much greater exposure latitude than slide film.
Thus using a slide film IT8 profile with color negatives will only result in a "correction" of a small part of the film.

This leads us to the last argument: I order to work you would have to use a color negative IT8 target. But there is no such thing. It is not possible to measure the color patches on a color negative film and thus you don't have any target values to compare with.

 

[johnny.moped]

If you are wondering about profiling the already inverted color negative image, this is a good read: http://www.hutchcolor.com/PDF/Cneg.pdf