Scanner not supported?

[Mike Rawcs]

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I've just tried to launch my Minolta Dimage Scan Elite 5400 film scanner and receive the message "You can't open the application DIMAGE Scan launcher because PowerPC applications are no longer supported. Spiffing.

Any way around this? I'm on a Mac running 10.7.5.

 

Thanks for any help,

 

Mike.

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[stunsworth]

Download Vuescan - www.hamrick.com

[spydrxx]

I'm not a computer guy, but you might check Vuescan's list of supported scanners and see if you like that software. I did and much prefer it over many others (including Silverfast), especially as my scanner isn't supported by many other current packages. The software is inexpensive and frequently updated.

[kanzlr]

easiest way is to use VueScan, a very capable and affordable scanning software that supports older scanners.

 

Apple finally ditched PowerPC support after a long period, so the old applications won't work on current MacOS releases, unfortunately.

[Mike Rawcs]

Yes, Viewscan works! Thank you all,

 

Mike.

[stunsworth]

If you decide to buy Vuescan, make sure you pay extra for the pro version. All updates for that version are free - I bought Vuescan in the late 90s and haven't had to pay for an upgrade since.

[Mike Rawcs]

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Thanks Steve, I do have Viewscan and I did purchase the pro version. I have not scanned film for some time and had not thought about Viewscan being able to solve the problem.

 

I usually scan everything at the highest resolution possible in a bid to get the maximum quality possible (that's why we buy Leicas, right?) but I'm beginning to realise that I may be making very large files and not getting any real benefit for the print sizes I want (10" x 15" maximum but 6" x 9" normal and the keepers sent to the lab to have large Imacon scans made). I save the scans as Tiffs. Does this sound reasonable?

 

Mike.

[stunsworth]

Mike, when scanning film using my Nikon scanner I always scanned at the highest resolution. With a flatbed I tended to scan at half the quoted resolution since I couldn't see any benefit from using the highest setting.

 

Scanning b&w - which was what I was mainly using - I saved the scans as 16 bit greyscale Tiffs.

 

As for the size of the resulting files, I happened to buy a new external drive yesterday - a 4TB drive for under £130. I don't think file sizes are much of an issue these days with hard disk prices being so low.

[Mike Rawcs]

Thanks Steve, I too store my photos on external hard drives. I'll experiment with file sizes and resultant print quality.

 

Mike.

[250swb]

It depends on your scanner, but pretty well all scanners start interpolating and adding pixels above a certain level. So for example if it says '7000 dpi' max dpi may mean something like only 3800 dpi as its native resolution, above that and it is working purely with software to fatten up the file. Obviously this changes from scanner to scanner, but essentially they are all liars, 7000 dpi (or whatever it is) is the maximum possible, not the unadulterated maximum. It is worth Googling your scanner and reading reviews and other user comments on the best highest resolution to use it at.

 

Steve

[Nick_S]

As for the size of the resulting files, I happened to buy a new external drive yesterday - a 4TB drive for under £130. I don't think file sizes are much of an issue these days with hard disk prices being so low.

 

I do the same, but on a practical note I would make sure all devices and ports use the USB 3.0 standard as backing up becomes a time consuming chore with the older USB 2.0 standard.

 

Regards

 

Nick

[stunsworth]

Nick, the drive is USB 3, and while the computer it's being used on only has USB 2, that doesn't bother me as its only being used for a Time Machine backup, and once the initial loading of the backup has run it's just chugs away in the background.

[Kirkby]

You would have to go back to OS X 10.6.8 software to be able to use the scanner supported soft ware.

For this reason I have two second to last generation Apple Mac Mini

computers (2010/11 models) that I hold to running OS X 10.6.8 so I can continue to use some of my earlier soft ware, and also "Rossetta", which is required to use some of these earlier softwares and has been dropped by Apple after 10.6.8.

 

For this reason I am able to continue to use my Nikon 5000 film scanner with the Nikon software with out any problems what so ever. I also prefer to use NikonScan than the other

software providers such as Vuescan etc.

 

regards Bruce

[tobey bilek]

I am not updating my Mac OS for this reason. Tried Vuescan twice twice and found it garbage compared to KM5400 software..

[erl]

Tobey, I am totally unfamiliar with 'KM5400 software but you cannot reasonably say VueScan is 'garbage'.

 

Too many experienced users prefer VueScan, I am one, to dismiss it thus. You may may not prefer it, fair enough, but it is extremely good in skilled hands. A bit Like a Leica. In unfamiliar hands it will not perform.