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Silverfast or Epson Scan for B&W?

lenshood

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Using a V series flatbed for B&W negatives - I've been using Epson Scan, and generally getting decent results, but have begun to wonder if Silverfast might be better. I've seen a lot of testimony as to its superiority with color, primarily because folks seem to like its film emulation presets. Any opinions, though, about how it handles black and white?
 
One of their bigger selling points is that iSRD is better than Digital ICE which isn't even a factor for black and white since the ifrared scanner can't see through the silver. That said I haven't compared the two directly on any b&w scans but I imagine it comes down more to which program is more convinent for your workflow in terms of usability/speed/automation/price.
 
Both can work well, Epson scan is easier to get started with and Silverfast offers more features.

I use Silverfast more these days, once I took the time to figure it out. It's not that complicated.

I do Color and Black and White.
 
I just found out the software for Epson scan doesn't work in the new Windows 11, but Vuescan does. Not sure about Silverfast, as I dont use it.
 
The dust removal feature is a plus, for sure. My first attempts using Silverfast, though, I found it leaned toward a much contrastier scan, and had a lot more clipping. Even adjusting the input blacks & whites on the histogram left a lot of unrecoverable data. But this was just one attempt on one negative, in no way a definitive test. Tips welcome....
 

I haven't done anything scientific either, but had a somewhat opposite experience recently. I found a roll in my Dad's old house from around 2005 and had it developed. To my eye, it was completley black, as if the entire strip had been exposed to daylight, rebate and everything solid black. But just for giggles I threw it on the scanner and Silverfast was able to actually pull out images from just a sliver of data on the histogram.

Its not what you'd call usable, but I was impressed nonetheless. Probably more a function of the sensitivity of the sensor in the scanner but if there were any clipping by silverfast, certainly this wouldn't have been possible

 
lenshood said:
well, I've heard its better for both color reversal and transparency...but that's neither here nor there for me, since i don't really use color.
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All my scans are with Epsonscan. Check my Flickr page for samples of BW. You'll find 35mm., 120 and 4x5s.
 
I'm a big SilverFast fan. I've been using it since I got my Epson V750, which came with a copy of SilverFast AI 7. I recently upgraded my Mac, and had to upgrade my SilverFast to AI 9. AI 9 is a major improvement over 8. It made my scanner feel like a whole new scanner, and not a 10+ year old device. I have tried EpsonScan but like others here, I found that while the user interface is very simple and friendly, it lacked sophistication. I use it for both b/w and color negative.
 
Alan Edward Klein said:
All my scans are with Epsonscan. Check my Flickr page for samples of BW. You'll find 35mm., 120 and 4x5s.
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Same for me (except nothing larger than 120). I have an album entitled "Film" on my Flickr page (link in signature); all the images (b/w, color negative and chrome) scanned with Epson V750 Pro using Epson Scan.
 
If you edit with Lightroom like I do, you don't need sophistication for the scan. Doing everything before the scan means you have to re-scan if you didn't like the way it came out and want to change the settings. By editing afterwards, in post, you only have to scan once and forget about it. Plus, why learn another editing program if you're already learned PS or Lightroom or something else?

Keep it simple.
 

Silverfast is not an "editing program", any more than Epsonscan is. It has tools that can apply certain editing technologies, but that doesn't mean it's an editor.

Both Silverfast and Epsonscan apply their own interpretation of the data collected by the scanner to produce even an "unedited" TIFF/RAW/DNG file. Personally, I prefer the results from Silverfast-- if you prefer Epsonscan, that's fine, but let's not pretend either program is intrinsically "better".
 
Alan Edward Klein said:
Nice shots; nice scans.
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Thanks,

Alan Edward Klein said:
What settings do you use with the V750 to scan?
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For the most part, while in 'Professional Mode' I usually don't play with the settings all too much. 16-bit b/w or 48-bit color. Might play with the levels just a bit, but that's about it. If I ever play with the images, it's usually in Photoshop, but that's usually dust removal and cropping.
 
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