Silverfast for my Epson questions

Funds being an issue, I'm hoping to get some more mileage out of my Epson 3170 before I upgrade to a better scanner, and I thought I'd give Silverfast a try. I d/l'd the Silverfast SE Plus demo last night and scanned a couple of slides at 3200 dpi. First thing I noticed is the scans seemed sharper -- quite a bit sharper than those I was getting using the Epson software that came with the scanner.

I'm curious how they do that for starters.

Also, I was looking for some advice -- should I go with the SE Plus, or maybe go for the AI or even AI Studio instead? So far the SE Plus seems to do what I need.

Most of my scanning chores will be converting 35mm slides and negs so I can archive them onto DVDs. I have quite a few medium format slides (unmounted) and negs, as well, and I was thinking about buying the film holder that betterscanning.com sells for the MF stuff.

Any advice would be helpful.

Best,

Michael

Unless you think you are going to keep your current scanner for quite a while, I'd advise against buying Silverfast since "funds [are] an issue".

Silverfast does a number of things well, but is customized for each particular scanner. If you upgrade scanners, you have to buy another version. It may not be full priced for the upgrade, but still it's a lotta dough.

You might consider VueScan. It's inexpensive for what it does. Many people seem to love it; I find its interface clunky and documentation lousy, but it gets the job done for many, and works with nearly any scanner without version-specific editions.

In all likelihood the increased sharpness you noticed was from Silverfast having sharpening turned on by default, which is not the case for the Epson Scan software.

Mike makes a good point about Silverfast. Also, the 3170 is a marginal scanner for film, particularly in terms of the light source in the lid. Even a V500 will be a nice step up from a 3170.

Doug

Thanks for the feedback, guys. I took another look at Silverfast's settings, and sure enough, sharpening was enabled. After enabling (medium) USM in the Epson software, I could detect no difference in sharpness between the two packages, although the Silverfast did manage to give the slide a green cast.

So, I guess I'll muddle on a while longer with the 3170.

What I want to get to eventually replace the 3170 is a scanner that can handle 4x5s. I don't have a LF camera at the moment, but it is on my list of eventual acquisitons. So rather than having to buy yet another scanner once I've acquired a 4x5, I'd just as soon wait until I can afford one that'll handle everything from 35mm up to 4x5.

So far, among "reasonably priced" scanners, it's looking like the Epson 4990, V700 or V750, or the Canon 9900 or 9950. I've heard nice things about the V-series, but the price is difficult to justify at this point (got a kid starting college in the Fall, and we're trying to get some funds put away for that).

Best,

Michael

I have an Epson V700 which I use for scanning 35mm XPan slides and B&W negs as well as 6x7 slides. I have used the Epson software supplied with it and found it poor even when in the "professional" mode. Silverfast SE Lite was also supplied and did a better job of scanning for the reason you suggested. Even with no sharpening applied it came out sharper. As a result I upgraded to the SE version with multiple exposure capability and later to the AI version.

As mentioned the software is version specific but there are a few other drawbacks I found:

1. The Multiple Exposure feature produces nasty chromatic aboration around high contrast edges.

2. The software won't run on 64 bit Vista. All my questions asking when this will be available are removed from their support forum by the moderator.

3. The multiple sampling doesn't work properly which could be as a result of my scanner not always returning itself to the same starting position. It's as if some of the scans dont quite line up. The other reason could be that its slow and the film heats up.

4. In fact it's very slow to do multiple sampling.

Vuescan produces a slightly less sharp scan but it could be because of the processing. Vuescan is also much better at pulling deatil from shadows and its multiple exposure function is good. Best of all if you splash out for the pro version you get free updates for life and it will work with pretty much any scanner. Well worth the money.