david_mantripp3

Alex, whick K-M are you using? As far as I know, Silverfast 8 only supports the 5400. Unfortunately SF8 does not support

DigitalICE. I don't know how good iSRD is, but certainly ICE on the K-M DSMP is visibly better than Vuescan's IR

cleaning.

 

Personally I've been scanning for a very long time, and I can get identical "flat" scans from SF and Vuescan. However I

prefer SF, for several reasons. First of all, it is more tightly integrated with the scanner. You might not notice this at first,

but apart from stuff like ICE, manual focus is much better implemented. Also SF has a wide range of adjustment tools

spefically designed for film scanning, which are far easier to use than the equivalents in Photoshop. It also has the "HDR"

worklflow, which I find useful (yes, I know, it isn't HDR HDR, but SF has been using that terminology for about a decade).

Of course if you don't want that stuff, it isn't worth paying for it, but if you do, and if you take scanning at all seriously, then

investing in Mark Segal's book is well worth the money. Face it, there's not much imaging software that you get the most

out of without some degree of 3rd party education, these days.

 

Vuescan has advantages too - you can get insulted by tech support instead of patronised :-) ... also one big plus for me is

the option to do a prescan without AF. But although it is better than it is given credit for on the post-procesing side, it is not

a patch on SF in that regard. However it's been a life saver for a lot of people, and there's no doubt that Vuescan-centric

workflows can be very effective.

 

What I don't really get is the hatred and invective for Silverfast. Lasersoft is a small, independent, niche software

company who by some miracle are not only still alive but still developing their products. Yes, GUI design is not their strong

point, but they have improved a lot. Maybe people underestimate the investment it takes to develop a UI, and how much it

diverts from core features. Ed Hamrick sure doesn't. I also don't get the criticism of their tech support. I file issues with

them now and again, and they follow through politely and work hard on solving them. What I do see is a lot of very rude,

aggressive flaming on their forum, usually from idiots who wouldn't even be able to recognise a manual, let along read it.

Frankly, if I was on the receiving end of some of that invective I'd just delete and blacklist.

 

Here's a useful tip for SF8 - if you really get stuck, and yes, it happens, just click the Service Dialog button on the launch

screen, then "reset software" (red button). Works for me.

Do any Opticfilm 120 owners know if Silverfast supports scanning of XPan type 24x64mm frames ? It looks like the 35mm film holder has

a position for them, but I can't find out if the software supports it... TIA

<p>Any chance that it will have a 24x65mm ("XPan") holder ? Although actually with today's reported demise of Kodak E100G I'm a step closer to finishing with film.. :-(</p>

<p>Everybody who says they can live with CSx (whatever version) forever, do bear in mind that that will tie you to some extent to whatever OS version you're running as well... </p>

<p>I would emphasize that investment of the amount of time you need to get really proficient with any of these tools vastly outweighs the investment in software. Both SF and Vuescan can extract the last drop of quality from a scan, if & when you know how to use them. The cost differential depends a bit on the options you choose (in SF). The initial learning curve is steep, then it flattens out. But going from 90% to 100% proficiency is the real challenge. My personal preference is very subjective, so I won't mention it :-)</p>

<p>Hi Robert,<br>

Thanks for the pointer. I was a subscriber to the Yahoo group way back, but in general I find Yahoo forums so hopeless to navigate that I gave up. I've had a look now, and there are some people with the same problem, so useful research.</p>

 

<p>I have wondered about cleaning. I've never even opened it up, but I'm a bit wary of wrecking something like mirror alignment or whatever. As it is now, actually the line is easy to remove by isolating the red channel in Photoshop, selecting a 3px high rectangle and apply dust & scratches....</p>

<p>Hi -<br>

I have a 9 year old Minolta Dimage Scan Multi Pro (and I'll never get used to typing all that in). In the last few days it has started producing scans with a 1-pixel deep red horizontal line across most of the frame. Initially I thought it might be a scratch on the Scanhancer, but it seems not.<br>

I've been assuming it was living on borrowed time for quite a while. This seems to be an issue with the CCD. Has anybody had a similar experience, or have any advice. Could be the end of film scanning for me - I can't see any viable alternatives.</p>

<p>David</p>

<p>I recently got a kit from ScanScience, and although there was a fairly significant mistake in the order, in general I'd say that dealing with them is recommended.<br>

However, in MY CASE (emphasize) which is scanning XPan slides on a Minolta Scan Multi Pro, the results are not exactly jaw-dropping. It is very, very hard to see any improvement over dry scanning, at least over the dry scanning setup and methodology (Silverfast HDR, multisample) I've refined over the years.<br>

...and it is incredibly fiddly to work with.<br>

Of course on a V700 it may be a different story.</p>

<p>Hi -<br>

Bit of a long shot this, but does anybody here have any idea if & how you can remove the hinged top from the 6x9 glassless carrier for a Minolta Multi Scan Pro ? I'd like to do this so that I can slide in a ScanScience fluid mount assembly, but I haven't worked out if it can be done - non-destructively, at least.<br>

Thanks<br>

David Mantripp</p>

Hi,

 

I discovered this thread by searching for "fungus & kodachrome".

 

I also have a lot of ageing KCs, and, unfortunately, due to past carelessness many of them are contaminated with fungus. But there is a way to deal with this, that may answer the other points.

 

If you use a Minolta Dimage Scan MultiPro, and use the Scanhancer (http://www.scanhancer.com/index.php?art=10&men=10), you can scan KCs with ICE3 enabled, with no loss of definition, and, incredibly, this combination is effective at "cleaning" even quite bad fungal marks.

 

I had actually forgotten that the Scanhancer enables one to use ICE on KCs, and yesterday, having scanned a slide, then painstakingly tried to clean it use Photoshop patch and spot healing, and ran it through again with the Scanhancer - and it came out spotless. My jaw hit the floor.

 

(Minolta DimageScan Multi Pro + Silverfast Ai Studio + Scanhancer 5LE)

 

David.

Thanks everybody - now, how do I get the meter to work ? :-) :-)

Hi -

 

Could some kind person tell me if the film speed setting on the Leica IIIf is

anything other than a reminder of what film is loaded ? Is it actually used for

anything ? And why does it discriminate between B&W and Colour ? Sorry if

these are naive questions, but I've looked around a bit and I couldn't find the

answer....

 

Thanks

David Mantripp