How to downgrade Mac Mini OS to run Nikon Coolscan 9000 original software

Robert Stone · Apr 4, 2020

MattKing said:
Vuescan is $69.95 USD for a single license.
A 10 user license is $400.00 USD

Yea for some reason that was the price it showed me and it didn’t seem to indicate another price. But my lab tech sent me a link to the lesser priced ($89) one that was full access version. Not sure why there are so many varied prices.

Everyone else. I have a spare Mac mini, so it’s not something that couldn’t be re-written with tiger, which is what I wanted to do. But no one had any experience with that specific process it seemed.

I trust “gorbus”’s advice as he’s a published expert. And I agree I’m sure the Nikon software probably produces the best scans.

I do have a lot of Kodachrome to scan, I was always under the impression that ICE tended to degrade the quality, both my Epson and Nikon 9000 have it in its original functionality, but lots of people said ICE lowers the quality, so I never used it.

If I find the scans using VueScan are lacking and really off, I’ll have to re-consider trying to return the software and installing Tiger and the Nikonoscan software. It sure is a lot more work to do that, than just using the available software. But if I have to spend hours correcting bad scans, it’s worth putting the extra time into the beginning aspect of the process. I guess I’ll report back in a few with some results.

Thanks for all the ideas and info. All sides are good food for thought.

Les Sarile · Apr 4, 2020

Robert Stone said:
I do have a lot of Kodachrome to scan, I was always under the impression that ICE tended to degrade the quality, both my Epson and Nikon 9000 have it in its original functionality, but lots of people said ICE lowers the quality, so I never used it.

I've seen many such statements online and it must come from those who don't have the Coolscan V, 5000 or 9000 using Nikonscan. Because if you did, all you would have to do is run a scan and know right away. The worst case I've found that will show this difference of ICE on Kodachrome is large contrast scene which have really dark and really light transitions. In my example below, this is the area between the black tires and the silver rims. In this case, even the Coolscan 5000 shows some very tiny imperfections while the 9000 is just perfect. The Epson results are prominent specially around the exhaust.

Full res version -> http://www.fototime.com/056E802FBAE131D/orig.jpg

I've never tried this using Vuescan as back then I didn't have many kodachromes to scan.
I've seen the most horrendous results from Canon FS4000 running with their FARE software. It was much worst then running ICE on true b&w film which no ICE I am aware of can do.

removed account4 · Apr 4, 2020

Hello Stone,
How about contacting NIKON and asking them what year the original software came out
and what OS they recommended, at the time then decide what OS ( like 10.6.8 ) you want to use to run it ?
It might be easier to get the answer directly from the people that made the product than 10 different people on the web..
https://www.nikonimgsupport.com/eu/BV_article?articleNo=000006470&configured=1&lang=en_GB
There might still be someone answring the emails who can help you backwards engineer your system.
Best of luck !

Robert Stone · Apr 5, 2020

jnantz said:
Hello Stone,
How about contacting NIKON and asking them what year the original software came out
and what OS they recommended, at the time then decide what OS ( like 10.6.8 ) you want to use to run it ?
It might be easier to get the answer directly from the people that made the product than 10 different people on the web..
https://www.nikonimgsupport.com/eu/BV_article?articleNo=000006470&configured=1&lang=en_GB
There might still be someone answring the emails who can help you backwards engineer your system.
Best of luck !

Thanks, there's already the info directly on the site, which is why I'm looking to install Tiger, because that is the final Mac OS that runs the software.

Everyone else, I've tried the VueScan and it's HORRENDOUS for Kodachrome, and mildly OK for other stuff. I do seem to be able to get the digital ICE to function, through a workaround, and it is pretty nice with no loss in quality, but I have a backlog of Kodachrome and on top of that, there's very little control over exposure and color, the settings are horrible, and the Epson software is WAY better.

ON TOP OF THAT, the Epson Scan software stopped working for the new Mac OS an they came out with Epson Scan 2 which is ALSO horrible and doesn't allow ICE on their own scanner... which... I just can't even understand what they are doing.... no histogram either.

SO, I've decided to try and get Tiger running on this spare Mac mini but it's been a challenge, I don't have a writable DVD that I can use, and I've been trying to use a USB to boot it, but that isn't working, AND I can't find a version of Tiger that is the Intel version (there's a power-pc version that seems to be more popular). Apple doesn't support this version of their OS so they don't give it out anymore. I'm almost at my wits end here.

MattKing · Apr 5, 2020

Robert Stone said:
Everyone else, I've tried the VueScan and it's HORRENDOUS for Kodachrome, and mildly OK for other stuff. I do seem to be able to get the digital ICE to function, through a workaround, and it is pretty nice with no loss in quality, but I have a backlog of Kodachrome and on top of that, there's very little control over exposure and color, the settings are horrible, and the Epson software is WAY better.

VUESCAN can offer a bit of a steep learning curve, but if you are finding that it gives you little control over exposure and colour, you haven't explored it far enough.
If anything, VUESCAN offers too much control!

reddesert · Apr 5, 2020

It's not immediately obvious, but typically in Vuescan the Input tab has the first of several dropdown selectors labeled 'Options," and this can be set to Basic / Standard / Professional. In Basic mode, there are almost no controls, but Standard and Professional provide progressively more options for exposure, color, etc. You can get to Standard and Pro even in the free demo mode.

I'm not advocating for switching to Vuescan if you prefer some other workflow, but it can be a lifesaver for older hardware (all scanner hardware, now).

Robert Stone · Apr 5, 2020

MattKing said:
VUESCAN can offer a bit of a steep learning curve, but if you are finding that it gives you little control over exposure and colour, you haven't explored it far enough.
If anything, VUESCAN offers too much control!

I feel like I have much more control with Epson Scan by a long shot. Maybe I'm doing it wrong.

reddesert said:
It's not immediately obvious, but typically in Vuescan the Input tab has the first of several dropdown selectors labeled 'Options," and this can be set to Basic / Standard / Professional. In Basic mode, there are almost no controls, but Standard and Professional provide progressively more options for exposure, color, etc. You can get to Standard and Pro even in the free demo mode.

I'm not advocating for switching to Vuescan if you prefer some other workflow, but it can be a lifesaver for older hardware (all scanner hardware, now).

Yea, I was using the pro mode and there's only 3 sliders, there's no histogram or point numbers even, just a simple slider. You can't even set white and black points that are decisive, it's just arbitrary.

I'm SURE it's a learning curve. For sure. But it's not like I find SilverFast to be good either. Epson Scan is so much better, more intuitive, more visual, does batch stuff easy, auto-select's frames, etc. It makes the process of making the actual image fairly smooth. And from all accounts the Nikon Scan was too, so I'm just trying to get there.

A friend told me there was a trick where you could punch out the back of the Nikon scanner and it would continue feeding a whole roll of film through. I don't know if I believe that, maybe he's thinking of a different scanner, but either way I just want the stuff to work, and I didn't spend all this money to not have it work smoothly, ya know? The Kodachrome not scanning well is really an issue though, like, it was REALLY off color wise, looked green and blue, and when I tried to adjust it it hardly adjusted, there wasn't any kind of auto-picker to adjust the color that actually worked, IDK maybe I'm asking too much of it.

Thanks for trying to help everyone. I may buy a disk off of the internet (which I found but trying not to spend money one something that should be free) or a whole computer just to get the Nikon software to run (if I'm going to spend money I might as well buy a Mac Pro instead of this slow Mac mini. Sigh.

removed account4 · Apr 5, 2020

Robert Stone said:
Thanks, there's already the info directly on the site, which is why I'm looking to install Tiger, because that is the final Mac OS that runs the software.

Everyone else, I've tried the VueScan and it's HORRENDOUS for Kodachrome, and mildly OK for other stuff. I do seem to be able to get the digital ICE to function, through a workaround, and it is pretty nice with no loss in quality, but I have a backlog of Kodachrome and on top of that, there's very little control over exposure and color, the settings are horrible, and the Epson software is WAY better.

ON TOP OF THAT, the Epson Scan software stopped working for the new Mac OS an they came out with Epson Scan 2 which is ALSO horrible and doesn't allow ICE on their own scanner... which... I just can't even understand what they are doing.... no histogram either.

SO, I've decided to try and get Tiger running on this spare Mac mini but it's been a challenge, I don't have a writable DVD that I can use, and I've been trying to use a USB to boot it, but that isn't working, AND I can't find a version of Tiger that is the Intel version (there's a power-pc version that seems to be more popular). Apple doesn't support this version of their OS so they don't give it out anymore. I'm almost at my wits end here.

Stone
Have you looked and scoured the overlord called Ebay; Ebay is probably your best friend. Have you logged into the Mac Forums or Mac Rumors Forums yet ? There is most definitely someone there who has old start up discs. If you haven't, here is a link

Strange you have so much trouble with VueScan. I've been upgrading and using mine, purchased probably in 2004, works very well for everything I use it for, even sold some 6foot by 8foot images scanned with it. You must have high standards; it is much easier in life if you set the bar low so you are not too disappointed.

If you can't get the OS, and driver and are scanner less, you might consider sending everything to Lenny Elger, he doesn't charge much for a DS. ( If you are still shooting 8x10 chromes at $40 a pop you can probably afford him. )
Best of luck in your search.

Here is a link to the VueScan Manual with information about histograms ( page 23 ) https://www.hamrick.com/vuescan/vuescan.pdf

warden · Apr 5, 2020

Robert Stone said:
ON TOP OF THAT, the Epson Scan software stopped working for the new Mac OS

That was a shame. Until that OS update I was happily using Epson Scan on my Epson scanner and VueScan on my Nikon scanner. There was no difference whatsoever in the quality of scans produced by either software. Now I just use VueScan on both.

gorbas · Apr 5, 2020

Robert, for all questions regarding Nikon scanners & software there is very good FaceBook group.

Robert Stone · Apr 6, 2020

gorbas said:
Robert, for all questions regarding Nikon scanners & software there is very good FaceBook group.

Thank you! Very Helpful!

jnantz said:
Stone
Have you looked and scoured the overlord called Ebay; Ebay is probably your best friend. Have you logged into the Mac Forums or Mac Rumors Forums yet ? There is most definitely someone there who has old start up discs. If you haven't, here is a link

Strange you have so much trouble with VueScan. I've been upgrading and using mine, purchased probably in 2004, works very well for everything I use it for, even sold some 6foot by 8foot images scanned with it. You must have high standards; it is much easier in life if you set the bar low so you are not too disappointed.

If you can't get the OS, and driver and are scanner less, you might consider sending everything to Lenny Elger, he doesn't charge much for a DS. ( If you are still shooting 8x10 chromes at $40 a pop you can probably afford him. )
Best of luck in your search.

Here is a link to the VueScan Manual with information about histograms ( page 23 ) https://www.hamrick.com/vuescan/vuescan.pdf

If you set your standards high, your results will be less-low than if they are already low

It's partially about time, and partially about the Kodachromes specifically. The other slides seemed fine, but the Kodachrome's were all out of wack with VueScan, fine on Epson but not as high quality a scan, and that's really why I bought the Nikon.

I may also decide to sell it eventually. Unfortunately because of the coronavirus I'm not able to make large prints of work that is scanned to really suss out the impact the quality makes on the final print (pixel peeping on a screen only tells you so much) so before I make a final decision I'd like to assess that.

jawarden said:
That was a shame. Until that OS update I was happily using Epson Scan on my Epson scanner and VueScan on my Nikon scanner. There was no difference whatsoever in the quality of scans produced by either software. Now I just use VueScan on both.

Yea I think VueScan is probably fine for most modern film scans, it's the wacky Kodachrome that's an issue, and from what I can tell the Nikon software handles that much better.

jsmoove · Apr 6, 2020

Not sure if this helps: https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/vuescan-7664

brbo · Apr 7, 2020

I think I have pretty much every version of OSX. I think the Tiger version I have is a universal (PPC & Intel), but you could just go with 10.5 or 10.6 (10.6.8 is the latest that will run PPC applications (which is what Nikon Scan for Mac is)). No need for hunting down Intel Tiger...

Mainecoonmaniac · Apr 7, 2020

I think Apple's Rosetta allowed Intel computers to run old software written for Motorola's Power PC.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_(software)

Robert Stone · Apr 8, 2020

brbo said:
I think I have pretty much every version of OSX. I think the Tiger version I have is a universal (PPC & Intel), but you could just go with 10.5 or 10.6 (10.6.8 is the latest that will run PPC applications (which is what Nikon Scan for Mac is)). No need for hunting down Intel Tiger...

Interesting. Well by all accounts Nikon says it doesn’t work on 10.5 on their site, so I erred on the side of caution.

So! I broke down and bought an old Mac Pro, Intel, it seems to run both scanning software and the scans look a LOT better, the control of the Nikon software is MILES ahead of vuescan.

My only issue is the browser doesn’t seem to load anything but google and yahoo, doesn’t load my website, or Wikipedia, or I can google stuff and it brings up the link, but then I click the link and it has a weird “Safari can’t establish a secure connection to the server” and so I had to download all the stuff on my main computer and then transfer it over.

Not a huge deal, but annoying, I’m sure it’s a setting somewhere, I downloaded other browsers and they all have the same issue, also WiFi and hard LAN both have the issue.

But YAY! I have my scanning computer now!

I posted the story on IG too because I was excited. Lol.

Les Sarile · Apr 8, 2020

Robert Stone said:
So! I broke down and bought an old Mac Pro, Intel, it seems to run both scanning software and the scans look a LOT better, the control of the Nikon software is MILES ahead of vuescan.

I don't know how proficient you are with Nikonscan but I setup an albumthat shows how to create a scan setting and how to apply it to the film you're about to scan at http://www.fototime.com/inv/B48262629CF3ECB
Pictures 1 - 5 shows how to create the setting and Pictures 6 - 13 shows how to apply them.
Happy scanning!

Robert Stone · Apr 9, 2020

Les Sarile said:
I don't know how proficient you are with Nikonscan but I setup an albumthat shows how to create a scan setting and how to apply it to the film you're about to scan at http://www.fototime.com/inv/B48262629CF3ECB
Pictures 1 - 5 shows how to create the setting and Pictures 6 - 13 shows how to apply them.
Happy scanning!

Oh wow! Thanks, I downloaded them and I'm transferring the files to the other computer to look at later, late, have to get to bed, but much appreciated. I did do some scanning and the files are GORGEOUS and the ease of use of the adjustment functions is even better than the EPSON Scan software, Nikon really had something, I'm sorry they cancelled support so early on. Glad I was able to get myself set up however.

Tom Kershaw · Apr 9, 2020

For anyone reading this thread I've scanned a large number of Kodachrome slides with the VueScan / Nikon Coolscan 9000 combination and found it worked perfectly fine.
https://www.photrio.com/forum/media/trees-in-silhouette.45376/ - PS) Robert, you made a positive comment about this photo when I originally uploaded the file.

warden · Apr 9, 2020

Robert Stone said:
So! I broke down and bought an old Mac Pro, Intel, it seems to run both scanning software and the scans look a LOT better, the control of the Nikon software is MILES ahead of vuescan.

When you get a chance please share your results! It would be especially nice to see a side-by-side comparison of the same slide scanned with each software. It's difficult to imagine the same scanner producing results that are miles ahead simply by switching the software but perhaps that's what we'll see.

Robert Stone · Apr 12, 2020

Tom Kershaw said:
For anyone reading this thread I've scanned a large number of Kodachrome slides with the VueScan / Nikon Coolscan 9000 combination and found it worked perfectly fine.
https://www.photrio.com/forum/media/trees-in-silhouette.45376/ - PS) Robert, you made a positive comment about this photo when I originally uploaded the file.

Oh I’m sure it can do fine, but the controls with the original software are MILES more advanced than the VueScan (but that’s probably because it’s made for multiple scanners, so the controls are more limited) and also the company is a heck of a lot smaller than Nikon or Epson etc. so there’s only so much they can do and make it profitable.

jawarden said:
When you get a chance please share your results! It would be especially nice to see a side-by-side comparison of the same slide scanned with each software. It's difficult to imagine the same scanner producing results that are miles ahead simply by switching the software but perhaps that's what we'll see.

Soooo, they were so bad I don’t know if I saved any. I also don’t have access to the software because they refunded me. But I’ll look when I’m on the computer.

Tom Kershaw · Apr 13, 2020

I don't really see where the Nikon Scan controls are 'MILES more advanced' than VueScan. To give this thread a couple of examples I post here two scans of the same Kodachrome slide from the Nikon LS-9000 - one using Nikon Scan and one VueScan- there is a colour difference, however I just used the default options in both programs and the differences are well within the realm of minor alteration of scan settings.

Nikon Scan 4 / Power Book G4:

VueScan / Mac Book Pro:

Tom Kershaw · Apr 13, 2020

VueScan with slightly different colour balance:

Tom Kershaw · Apr 13, 2020

Robert Stone said:
So! I broke down and bought an old Mac Pro, Intel, it seems to run both scanning software and the scans look a LOT better, the control of the Nikon software is MILES ahead of vuescan.

Stone, what is the spec of your Mac Pro? - btw, you may be able to find a reasonably up-to-date browser that works on your machine if you search.

Robert Stone · Apr 24, 2020

Tom Kershaw said:
Stone, what is the spec of your Mac Pro? - btw, you may be able to find a reasonably up-to-date browser that works on your machine if you search.

I suspect the difference is more extensive with more difficult scans, poor exposure, contrasted lighting, long exposure with color shifts, where I need to make a lot more adjustments, the ability to drag the specs for darks and lights and everything on the histogram is just a lot more extensive in function.

I did check, I junked them all and had formatted the hard drive a few times attempting to install on the Mac mini I had.

The machine I now have is a lot faster anyway, so I think it’s probably better that I did this regardless.

Do you need more specs than this? (2 PicS below)

Tom Kershaw · Apr 24, 2020

Robert Stone said:
I suspect the difference is more extensive with more difficult scans, poor exposure, contrasted lighting, long exposure with color shifts, where I need to make a lot more adjustments, the ability to drag the specs for darks and lights and everything on the histogram is just a lot more extensive in function.

For transparency scans I take the result straight out of Nikon Scan / VueScan as tiff file. Color negative is scanned in VueScan but output as a raw tiff file (no adjustment) and then converted to positive within the ColorPerfect software. - www.colorperfect.com - this is worth a look even if you don't use it as there is some good content on the site.

Robert Stone said:
I did check, I junked them all and had formatted the hard drive a few times attempting to install on the Mac mini I had.

You had reliability issues with the mac mini when trying different web browsers?

Robert Stone said:
The machine I now have is a lot faster anyway, so I think it’s probably better that I did this regardless.

Your Mac Pro looks like a very good option for running a scanner. You could always install another more recent operating system on an additional hard drive if you neeeded to at some point. A quick tip, you can do a partial screenshot on Mac OS X with the keyboard shortcut 'command-shift-4' and then drag out the area to be included with the mouse pointer.

How to downgrade Mac Mini OS to run Nikon Coolscan 9000 original software

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