Photography -- Re: Trying to resucitate old scanner

Dear Karl,

I think I'll give it a try - I still have my old PC, but scanning slides with good resolution never was "fun" on this single core 3.5 GHz Machine.

The new PC is much stronger (4 GB RAM...) and I would not have to transfer files all the time.

Now, the main decision is whether to immediately buy the pro edition or play it safe and first buy standard and upgrade to pro if everything works as expected.

How big is the difference between the two versions anyway? Is the "raw" file I can generate much superior to a tif?

I know the importance of shooting raw with a camera, but it would appear to me that conditions are much more controlled when scanning (for example white balance should not be a problem?) and all in all I just want to replicate most of the slides I've taken and not be overly creative now.

After all I wouldn't scan the non-keepers in the first place...

Laurenz

2008/9/6 karl shah-jenner <shahjen@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

----- Original Message -----
From: "Laurenz Bobke" <info@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "List for Photo/Imaging Educators - Professionals - Students" <photoforum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, September 06, 2008 11:45 PM
Subject: Trying to resucitate old scanner

: I'm trying to make Windows Vista (64 Bit!) cooperate with my Minolta Dimage
: Scan Dual IV scanner.
: All attempts to do this with the driver CD failed. Updating to a newer
: driver is no option: Minolta has sold the complete photo business and Sony
: obviously is not interested in supporting old Minolta products.
: I succeded in getting a few test scans done using the trial version of
: Vuescan, but the programme crashed a couple of times, so I'm somewhat
: reluctant to actually buy it.
: The trial version watermarks all scans, so it's not real fun to do scans
: that I'll have to throw away anyway.
: What are other people's experiences here? Is Vuescan worth the money, are
: there any known problems (or even better: solutions) with Vista?
: Do you know of any good alternatives (apart from buying a new scanner, of
: course).

best bet is write to Hamrick himself, explain your problems and ask for his suggestions - he's very a very helpful person..

Vuescan is the ultimate scanning software and has been well worth the money for a lot of people

alternatively you may dedicate an old computer to scanning as many do and use a KVM to minimise its footprint on your desktop

karl