Re: VueScan

[Markus Berheide <berheide@ridgefield.sdr.slb.com>]

Hello Sandy,

         I have been using VueScan with a HP S20 scanner for quite some 
time now. I don't know SilverFast, but the main advantage of Vue Scan over 
other cheap scanner software in my eyes is that it leaves you with a lot of 
control.

First you can fine-tune exposure and number of passes if your scanner 
supports that.

Second you can save raw data with full scanner ADC resolution, so that if 
you have a program capable of 16 bit processing like PhotoShop and you 
prefer to do all image manipulation in that program you can read in and 
manipulate directly the raw images. If you do that be, aware that the raw 
data have not been gamma corrected, so that for a correctly exposed scan 
the histogram looks skewed and overall brightness looks completely wrong. 
VueScan uses a default setting of 2.2 for gamma correction from negatives 
and that is a good starting point to iterate from. Once the gamma 
correction is applied together with level corrections you can convert into 
eight bit mode if you prefer to work with that.

Third, batch processing is available within VueScan and can be applied to 
the raw data. So I can quickly scan a whole role of film and than later go 
back to the raw data, that are now saved on my harddrive, and optimize the 
procedure for processing them into output. This is VERY useful although 
costly as far as file size goes. A raw scan of a film strip is easily 50 MB 
or more.

Fourth, you can choose one of many color profiles of different films 
predefined in the software or you can set up your on options for processing 
the data. However, this part needs a lot of experimenting if you want to 
part from the default settings. Also the documentation is rather scarce, so 
if you are not to confident about experimenting with software you might 
find it to complicated to use.

My biggest wish to improve VueScan would be a histogram displayed next to 
the preview and even better to combine the level settings with that 
histogram display (as you would have it for example in PhotoShop).


Hope that helps,
Markus


At 11:06 PM 11/16/2001 -0600, you wrote:
>Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2001 16:46:09 +1100
>From: Sandy <sandy@mcgray.com.au>
>Subject: VueScan
>
>Hello list
>
>Because I saw Vuescan mentioned on this list I have downloaded a copy but
>not tried it as yet (time robbers seem to forever find me)
>
>I would be interested in comments about its use and any comparisons to
>SilverFast www.silverfast.com
>
>Any comments about improving scans from a nikon coolscan III or agfa T1200
>appreciated.
>
>Many thanks in anticipation
>
>Sandy Gray
>I just know enough to know I don't know enough yet

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