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I'm considering the hitherto unthinkable: switching from Vuescan to Silverfast. I just want some opinions from users of Silverfast. Background: I've been pretty satisfied with Vuescan the last few years. But one scenario in particular exposes a problem I keep having trying to export totally flat, linear, color-negative scans: when the entire image is high-key (over-exposed or simply an image that's intentionally just one narrow section of the full tonal range), I find that pretty much nothing I do will give me a scan that is correctly flat and at the same time only fills the correct part of the histogram. Instead of this, the tones get redistributed across the entire range of the histogram - which gives a highly contrasty scan where the opposite is what I intended. There may be workarounds - if you know how to fix this let me know - but my aim is to always simply export the flattest, linear, most neutral *batch* scan without needing to tweak output on a single-image basis. I find ColorPerfect, PhotoShop and Lightroom are all better at manipulating color and contrast etc than Vuescan, and I'd prefer to keep the scanning software out of the image-manipulation process, as far as possible. This is where my experiments with the latest Silverfast demo come in: the output scans are all much flatter, and maybe more boring. But that's what I want! They also sometimes seem to find slightly more color 'nuance' in things like masses of leaves in a forest of trees. This is a difficult thing to be sure about, as the color is influenced by the tonality. Anyway, the extra bonuses are that the scans are much faster. They also have slightly sharper characteristics at 100% view - though they don't actually extract more detail than Vuescan at 4000dpi (so possibly just USM - if so, I'd love to know how to switch it off, as I don't want the software to do any pre-processing). I'm still looking and comparing the two softwares, and I'm not sure yet, but there are definitely things that bother me about Silverfast: - the price-gouging structure - the censored support forum (and the often dismissive tone of the 'help') - the crazily unintuitive and unhelpful (and downright ugly) interface - this gets in the way of everything. - the program often does something (like a prescan) when you simply close an interface element (like the frame-finder function) - the lack of any in-depth documentation - apart from a third-party book that they sell(!!) you on their site - the general feeling that the company don't give a **** about their users I'd like to hear from people who use the software - especially with scanners like the Coolscan range - and are actually happy with it (or unhappy for specific reasons).

Hey guys, I wrote a new article! In this article I will go over my workflow for photos taken on film rather than digital. I will be using software suite Nikon Scan 4, and will go over the settings I use for scanning with the Nikon Super Coolscan 4000 ED. This article will be most of interest to anyone using Nikon Scan 3 or 4 with any of the Nikon Coolscan film scanners. Some features and options will vary per scanner but most will be the same. It will also be interesting for people who use other scanners and software but will need to take this information as is and ‘translate’ it into their own software suites functions and options. Please read the article here: Scanning film with Nikon Super Coolscan 4000 - Jip van Kuijk I would love to receive comments and feedback here on the forum or in the comment section on my website.

Silverfast or Vuescan? Nikon no longer supports their Coolscans with a Windows 7 driver. Grrrrr! For those of us who scan our film, does anyone have a preference between these two products (or any other one)? Thanks! Steve

My Coolscan V went out of order about 15 month back. After ignoring him for that long, I finally gave it a final try and opened it. Some screws are hidden under the rubber feet. Thanks to the nicely printed circuit board, I quickly found out where the fuse is. The specification on the board says T2AH 250V. Not really an electronic wizard, I however concluded after some internet checks, that this requires a 2A, 250V fuse, "träge" (don't know how to translate that in this context, maybe "slow"). [ATTACH]186834[/ATTACH] Then I discovered that Nikon has actually placed a 1A fuse in the socket, which was blown not quite surprisingly. After replacement with the proper fuse, the whole thing runs as it never had a problem. Regards Ivo

Not that I post here all that often, but I've been hiding away for the last few months playing with my 'new' Coolscan IV It has taken me quite some time (and forum searching) to extract decent images from negs and slides but I think I'm improving. I have a number of slides of my father's to scan (dating from the early 1950's I believe, taken with his IIf), many of which have badly degraded. I notice that some of them are in what look like aluminium slide mounts (of the glass sandwich type) with the Leica emblem on them! I have tried scanning them but have terrible problems with Newton rings on the images. I can't figure out how to un-mount the film from the mount without destroying the mount- can anyone advise on how to do this? They look like they have been crimped together. I may post a few images on the forum, although you must promise not to laugh at my scanning attempts! I have been meaning to buy some sort of screen calibration device as I don't think the colours on my screen are what I'm actually scanning (maybe I should start another thread...) but the decent ones seem outside my budget.

Hallo zusammen, dies ist mein erster Beitrag hier im Forum... :-) Nachdem Nikon Scan 4 unter Intel Macs nicht mehr installiert werden kann, such(t)e ich nach einer Möglichkeit, meinen Coolscan V ED zu betreiben. Dabei bin ich auf die Silverfast 8Software gestoßen und habe mir die Demoversion installiert. Nun scheint die Software nicht in der Lage zu sein, einen kompletten Negativstreifen in einem Durchgang als Vorschau zu scannen. Gleiches bei Vuescan, was ich ebenfalls versucht habe. Unter Nikon Scan ging dies jedenfalls noch. Oder habe ich da was verpasst? Auch die Kurzanleitung gibt dazu nichts her... Wäre euch dankbar, wenn jemand von euch eine Lösung weiß!