Using SilverFast AACO for scanning

I use SilverFast 8.0 for scanning medium format black and white negatives on an Epson Perfection V500 scanner. I was considering getting the upgrade to add AACO. Does anyone use this part of this program and does it work well on black and white images?

I looked at Silverfast's web page to see what AACO is. When I used a Plustek 7600i, this might have been useful. With my new/old Coolscan 5000, the NikonScan software (running on Windows 7) does a remarkable job with b&w negatives. But maybe I will try a demo version of Silverfast Ai in case it extracts more data.

I venture to suggest, spoken from the perspective of a few decades experience, managing high and low values in-camera e.g. nailing the exposure so that scanning using ordinary, uncomplicated settings is for the most part, troublefree. Leaving the task of manipulating a B&W print to an automated scanner program or plug-in might even make the situation worse by imparting a discernible 'digital fakery', for want of a more succinct term.

The scanning process is inherently imperfect and, if skill and experience is lacking, is prone to creating strife as an altered digital representation of a physical print. Realism must be retained and expressed in the resulting image to the viewer.

Automation is something that bugs me. I fear that in the not too distant future anything to do with scanning is going to be gleefully hijacked by the reach and advance of AI, with progressively less control from the hitherto none-the-wiser user.

I've been using Silverfast scanning software for over 20 years, but I honestly never found any of the automated tools to be very useful. Nowadays, when scanning B&W negs I scan to a linear file, then convert with the ColorPerfect plugin in PS. I rarely scan any color, but when I do my overall objective is to get a good, evenly distributed histogram along with reasonable color. Bottom line, most of my image editing is downstream in PS.

Citsmith said:

I use SilverFast 8.0 for scanning medium format black and white negatives on an Epson Perfection V500 scanner. I was considering getting the upgrade to add AACO. Does anyone use this part of this program and does it work well on black and white images?

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I use SilverFast (9) and have tried the AACO tool at Low and Normal settings on some difficult (B&W) negatives. I’m no expert, but I don’t think that the AACO tool provides anything that I could not obtain in Post, using Affinity (or pick your favorite tool here). Of more concern to me, is any digital artifacts that AACO might impart …

In all fairness to LaserSoft, some of their add-ons might be very useful, depending upon one’s workflow. I’m thinking of the scanning to RAW files, or the Job Manager which gives the user control over images in batched settings … AACO, no so much.

If someone could come up with a tool that automates "spotting" of scanned film files, I'd be keen!

MattKing said:

If someone could come up with a tool that automates "spotting" of scanned film files, I'd be keen!

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I'm sure there is a crowd out there with a similar sentiment.
But it is not my job. I shoot. I send. They scan and de-spot then print.

I must say my scannermeister seems to make very light, proficient work of the task; I have never seen any noticeable spicks and specks from any of the scans he has produced (from an Imacon drum scanner). All I see are pretty pictures.