Help with Vuescan and Plustek 8100

[Tony Egan]

I upgraded to Windows 8 recently and also bought a Plustek OpticFilm 8100 which seems to come tethered with Silverfast. Initially had a devil of a job finding a driver that would work properly but Silverfast and the 8100 are now working OK. However, Vuescan will not recognise the 8100 and if the 8100 is switched on Vuescan crashes. I also have a Nikon Coolscan which works fine with Vuescan. I would like to get the 8100 and Vuescan to talk and suspect there is still a driver issue. Have Googled many times but can't see any obvious solution. When I look at the Device driver records the 8100 shows up with what looks like a generic Windows scanning driver A1C? (per picture). I expect if it was working properly, and to be recognised by Vusecan, it should read Plustek 8100 or something like that.

Anyone out there have any suggestions on what I should try to fix this? Thanks.

 

[ctscanner]

Tony,

Suggest you take a look at VueScan Scanner Software for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. Make sure first of all that your machine is on the list of supported scanners. If it is, then you might like to get in touch with Paul Hamrick the Vuescan guru who developed the program and runs the site. Good luck with your quest.

George

 

[Tony Egan]

Finally got Vuescan to recognise the Plustek 8100. I uninstalled Vuescan and Plustek scanner drivers and re-installed latest 64 bit versions from each suppliers official website. For some reason the Windows installer froze again (as it has every time) while installing the Plustek drivers but I ignored this and installed Vuescan again while the scanner was switched on and everything seems to be working OK after a restart. Have to say I am not a big fan of Windows 8.
p.s. Ed Hamrick was very responsive to my email and confirmed from the log file it was a Plustek driver call problem.

 

[artobest]

Excellent - now don't forget to post some samples! I'm quite interested in this scanner for some 35mm work.

 

[ctscanner]

Glad to see it worked out for you. I too am interested in seeing some of the results from the scanner/program combo.

 

[Tony Egan]

View attachment 1014I have been following this process for a few weeks now scanning colour negs from 30 years ago and find it quite effective at controlling clipping at both ends and rendering satisfactory colours.
[video=youtube_share;_pfQ61WTbug]http://youtu.be/_pfQ61WTbug[/video]
I have about 4 different profiles saved for different colour neg films and results are fairly consistent from one roll to the next.

I am mostly using the Nikon IV ED and Vuescan for the old colour negs (rather than 8100) as it has dust and scratch removal unlike the Plustek which I use with Silverfast for b&w film as I find the contrast controls more suitable for B&W compared to Vuescan. So, having wrestled with the above problem I find I may not be using the combination much now! Of well, I just hate driver problems and can't rest until I solve it...

Below is example of the 8100 with Vuescan on a quite contrasty negative. Handles shadows and highlys well with no clipping at either end on the basic scan before few minor tweaks in PS.

 

[ctscanner]

Sounds like you are getting into a good place scanning wise. Vuescan, and Silverfast too, both provide access to a variety of film profiles and I have always enjoyed trying them, particulary with the older films. And with B&W, it's always been a convenient, lazy man's way to mess with toning.