Vuescan Pro v9

[jd callow]

So on one machine I need to drive an Epson flatbed, Nikon film scanner and soon a Minolta film scanner. Epson's software is ok at best, but what is awaful is it loads a thing called arcsoft that thinks its ok to stay permanently in your face with a little transparent messaging tab up under the apple menu.

You have to edit a start up script to keep arch soft from loading and being in your face -- no way to do it in preferences. I can't tolerate software of this nature.

Nikon's software v. 4.02 is buggy and prone to crashing on OSX 10.6. Silver fast is good, I like the options, but the scan quality when all things were equal was inferior to Vuescan. Vuescan also had the added benefit of running all the scanners.

So Vuescan Pro wins for now. The UI is at best an up hill battle and the online manual is a version out of date and covers about 50% of the program's functionality.

Anyone with experience using vuescan v 9 who wishes to share how to get the most out of the application -- such as scanning 35mm, 6x6 and 6x9 film strips -- please feel free to enlighten me.

 

[jd callow]

Short of anyone enlightening me I will subject you to my pain as I learn how to use it.

 

[Tom Kershaw]

I've got used to working in Viewscan Pro but I'd agree the interface is not immediately obvious.

Tom

 

[Loris Medici]

The interface is cumbersome and the options are abundant (too many things to adjust together / complex), but once you get used to it, you never look again for something else. (I like the fact that I can use Vuescan with all of my scanners and in all the operating systems I run...) OTOH, I usually split the scanning workflow between the scanning and image editing programs, therefore if you're looking for a perfect file right through the scanning program, don't count on my opinion. I never tried to pull a perfect file from Vuescan; I just try to capture the purest / best data, with the best possible historgram distribution and do the rest in the image editing program...

Regards,
Loris.

 

[jd callow]

I'm not looking for a perfect image from my scanner or scanner software. I need the software to allow the scanner to add as little bias as possible, to give me the most information (capture the entire histogram not clip), and scan the frame(s) with as little pain as possible. I do all of my colour, density and contrast adjustments in PS. Currently I have no problem getting Vuescan to meet the first 2 of my requirements the third requirement has been the issue. Getting it to batch scan 3 6x6 frames has been pure pain.

 

[samcomet]

JD,
I like Vuescan and have been using it for years now. I shoot B & W neg, mostly Delta 3200 and T-Max 3200 35mm. I tend to NOT use any of the software options that are part of Vuescan rather I scan RAW to .DNG and use Photoshop for my image correction. I DO use the built-in film references in the "Colour" tab but over time I have not noticed a great degree of difference in my RAW scans. As a controller for my CanoScan FS 4000US it is great. Other than that I have found the "Help" files very useful for the learning curve. I one tried to "calibrate" the scanner using a Kodak Q IT8 Target (like the one in the other thread you and I are subscribed to about calibration of scanners). Obviously for B & W film it was next to useless. I DID shoot a grey scale ages ago on Scala and neg and tried to make my own IT8 calibration but I found the built in defaults to be just as adequate esp when editing in Photoshop. The other useful tool is the ability to do several scans at different exposures to do HDR's and to do several passes of the same scan for image quality. I am also won over by the "updates for life" clause as I purchased mine many moons ago. Never tried the OCR thingie but maybe someday I might need it. If you had a specific question regards your work flow (i.e the 3rd requirement above) and if I think I have an answer I would be most happy to try to help out....good luck and hope you find Vuescan as good a tool as I do. cheers, sam

 

[SWphoto]

There is hope! Rocky Nook will soon be releasing a detailed "the missing manual" for Vuescan, The Vuescan Bible:

Rocky Nook, Inc.

I have the author's book on scanning, and he knows his stuff, so this should be helpful.

 

[jd callow]

Thanks guys.

Rick, I look forward to the Bible and thanks for the heads up and link.

Sam,
Our approach to scanning is the same. If you could, where I'd like a leg up is as follows:
I want to stick a strip of 3 6x6 frames in the nikon 8000 and preview all three frames, set the crop, and scan all three (I realize that I'll need to run the preview once for each frame) or if that is not possible I want to be able to preview frame one, set crop & scan, preview frame 2 set crop & scan, preview frame 3 set crop & scan. Obviously previewing first, croping each frame, and scanning en mass is preferable.

The help file that the application links to is for version 8.x and the ui is different and there is no instruction on how to use the offset or frame no. The film size seems to have no bearing on preview. When set to 6x6 it previews the first 6x9 area (half the strip) for frame 1 and then the next 6x9 area for frame 2. This makes it impossible to scan the entire middle frame.

Does this all make sense if not I can reword it...

 

[Tim Gray]

Here are a couple of thoughts about Vuescan:

- Set your black and white point to 0. Anything else will clip.

- In the 'Crop' tab, set the buffer to 10%. This tells the scanner to use the inner 90% of the crop mark to set exposure, etc. It helps avoid the film base and white edges.

- Be careful with the 'Generic Color Negative' setting. It's the same as Kodak Gold 100. It is NOT the same as no negative setting. It appears that Vuescan uses Kodak PhotoCD film terms as it's film profiles. As I understand it, these film profiles try to 'take the negative out of the scene' and reproduce the original scene, not reproduce whats on the film. Whether or not that's something you want to do, I don't know. More importantly, I've found that they are out of date (think old Portra, not the current versions on the market) and pretty crummy. Since I don't want to be applying the Kodak Gold 100 profile to all of my scans, especially since it seems to crunch the blacks a bit, I just scan as a linear raw scan and invert in PS.

- If you have a scanner which lets you adjust the RGB exposures individually, you can adjust them to take care of a lot of the orange mask during scanning. This may or may not be worthwhile It can't really hurt other than taking up a bit more time, but I'm not entirely convinced it gives you 'better' data. Google 'Vuescan advanced workflow' and look for procedures where you lock the exposure and film base.

- If using Vuescan's built in color neg processes or scanning slides, I'd set the color correction to None or Neutral. If you want to quickly white balance things, right click on a neutral in the preview. It will automatically change the color correction to Manual. Personally, though I gave Vuescan an honest chance, I just don't like what it does to color. I'm getting much better color by using linear scans and doing all my adjustment in PS.

 

[jd callow]

Thanks Tim.
My desire and early efforts have been simply to get a raw scan, no clipping or optimization and no colour correction. This seemed to be rather easy to do and the captured tonal range and overall scan quality was excellent. The tips regarding Crop buffer, black/whit point settings, etc.. are appreciated and helps to add to my understanding of the application.

My greater frustration is getting it to scan multiple frames on a strip of negatives. Granted I haven't worked on it in couple days so once I'm freed to do so I may crack the code. It is unfortunate that the UI has to be difficult to wrap my mind around. I suspect that this is partly due to the universal utility of the application.

 

[Rudeofus]

Dear jd,

I have vuescan 9.0.06 installed and autocropping can be set in the second tab from the left. Set the top selection to 6x6 film and pick the right frame from the preview. I have scanned whole film strips with both my Nikon Coolscan V and with my Epson V700, I see no reason why this shouldn't work with your scanner.

In case you run into troubles, try to contact Ed Hamrick directly. He was quite responsive in my personal experience and being one of the admins of an active hybrid photo forum should give you extra cred with him.

Cheers & I hope you get this sorted out soon.

 

[Tim Gray]

Can't help you with that specific problem since I don't have a flatbed. The way the frame selection process works with a Coolscan is probably not applicable.

 

[jd callow]

Rudeofus,
thanks for the tip I'll be trying it shortly once I take care of paying the bills.
Tim,
It isn't a flat bed, but the brother to your coolscan the super coolscan 8000ed.

In any event I'll stop my whinning and report back once I've had a chance to play.

 

[Tim Gray]

Oops sorry. I read 'strips of 6x6 and 6x9' and though flatbed.

With the V, I set the 'batch scan' setting to list and type in the frame numbers that I want to preview. Hit preview and let it do it's thing. After the scans are previewed, you can step through each preview by hitting next/prev down at the bottom. Set your crops on each scan. After you've adjusted all the frames, hit scan. It should do scan them all at once with the proper settings/crops then. If you don't want to scan all the frames you previewed, you can remove those frame numbers from the batch list setting. Sometimes I just save the preview because I don't care about having a full resolution copy of that frame.

Sometimes on the V, Vuescan doesn't find the right frame boundary. I measure how much it's off (in mm) by mousing over the frame boundary and seeing what it's offset is from the left edge of the preview, which is 0mm. Type the offset into the 'frame offset' setting and re-preview and you should be good. If it's chopping off the beginning of your frame, you need to measure from the right edge of the negative and calculate a negative offset from the maximum x value visible in the preview window (something like 37.8mm on the V). This step may very well be different for the 8000.

The V scans a little differently from the 8000, so the above may or may not apply. I don't know how the 8000 feeds the negatives or finds frame boundaries.

 

[JS 2011]

Vuescan v9 - ok I got it ,- but why PRO that prog doesn't have USM option . And scan quality very poor .

 

[jd callow]

I'd recommend not having the scanner do the sharpening and instead do something that allows for localized control and is nondestructive. Such as using the highpass filter on copy layer and blending with overlay.

 

[samcomet]

followup

Thanks guys.

Rick, I look forward to the Bible and thanks for the heads up and link.

Sam,
Our approach to scanning is the same. If you could, where I'd like a leg up is as follows:
I want to stick a strip of 3 6x6 frames in the nikon 8000 and preview all three frames, set the crop, and scan all three (I realize that I'll need to run the preview once for each frame) or if that is not possible I want to be able to preview frame one, set crop & scan, preview frame 2 set crop & scan, preview frame 3 set crop & scan. Obviously previewing first, croping each frame, and scanning en mass is preferable.

The help file that the application links to is for version 8.x and the ui is different and there is no instruction on how to use the offset or frame no. The film size seems to have no bearing on preview. When set to 6x6 it previews the first 6x9 area (half the strip) for frame 1 and then the next 6x9 area for frame 2. This makes it impossible to scan the entire middle frame.

Does this all make sense if not I can reword it...

JD,
I see that Tim Gray has already answered your question about batch scanning - sorry to say I must be on the opposite side of the planet time zone wise to you two! A further thought is that post "preview" you have the opportunity to check "all frames" at the bottom of the non "default" tabs to apply crops, colour, brightness, etc. etc. to all images in the scan...this holds true to the lock exposure button on the "input" tab. I also have to echo Rudeofus in that Ed Hammrick IS helpful to drop a line to him...but from what I can tell Tim seems to have answered you questions. If you have any other issues and want to ask please do.
cheers for now,
sam

 

[jd callow]

Sam, Tim
Thanks for the help. As luck would have it I've been too busy to test out any of your instructions, but as soon as I have a moment I'll do some scans and let you know what I discover.
Cheers,

jdc

 

[JS 2011]

Never High Pass for scan . I'm serious
..First at all - I'm not afraid of Film Grain - this is a film . Grain is a soul of film . Lot of Photographers / young one's / judging scan on monitor - , do it on print ! . So I'm trying to get from scan as much details as I can . Because make image softer - is a piece of cake, you know that . But not enough sharp scan - is a bad story . Sharpness has a Limit - Hot Pixels. But sharpening on scanner is different than on DSLR - Works like Lens aperture . For scanner job I'm shooting ASA 100 on RF Camera only . Regards

 

[JS 2011]

here is a link Gallery Message - Gallery
and here is another one http://www.dpug.org/gallery/showimage.php?i=900&c=33

 

[pschwart]

- There is a sharpen option in the filter tab, but better to do your sharpening in
Photoshop.
- Vuescan is capable of high quality scans. Maybe check your setup and
workflow?

Vuescan v9 - ok I got it ,- but why PRO that prog doesn't have USM option . And scan quality very poor .

 

[JS 2011]

Yes , there is sharpen Option - can be set @ " Yes or No" . No fine ajustments available / like dark ,light , for luminosity Ch. only
My point is - Scanner software / original/ better than any third party software "for all scanners" . Regards

 

[Loris Medici]

I can confidently say: That wasn't the case for the software that came with my Minolta Dimage Dualscan III...

...
My point is - Scanner software / original/ better than any third party software "for all scanners".

 

[Rudeofus]

Yes , there is sharpen Option - can be set @ " Yes or No" . No fine ajustments available / like dark ,light , for luminosity Ch. only
My point is - Scanner software / original/ better than any third party software "for all scanners" .

IMHO it's not the job of the scanner software to allow fancy post processing, there is a lot of very well established software available for this, and there is really no point in competing with these packages. vuescan allows you to get images out of your scanner, and it does this also under linux which can't be said for any of the original software packages. All these "sharpen YES/NO" or color correction features in vuescan are mostly aimed at folks who scan in documents and don't need fancy post processing.

 

[jd callow]

IMHO it's not the job of the scanner software to allow fancy post processing, there is a lot of very well established software available for this, and there is really no point in competing with these packages. vuescan allows you to get images out of your scanner, and it does this also under linux which can't be said for any of the original software packages. All these "sharpen YES/NO" or color correction features in vuescan are mostly aimed at folks who scan in documents and don't need fancy post processing.

This is my opinion also, except in a production environment where everything is pretty much locked down, tested often and then only when the tolerances can allow for it (e.g. proofing or other non-critical applications).