When I first starting comparing these two applications, I thought I would end up with Scanvue, because it was a lot less money than Silverfast and honestly I don't need all the image editing features in Silverfast. I use Lightroom for all my digital photo cataloging and editing, etc., so all I wanted was the best possible scan that I could process in Lightroom with the same tools.
My specific use case is that I have this scanner, including the SF-210 batch feeder, which has a 50 slide capacity. I have, at a rough estimate 30-40 thousand slides, all Kodak. The vast majority are Kodachrome, with Ektachrome probably 15-20%. I also have about 10 thousand B&W negatives, and maybe one thousand color negatives, all 35 mm.
So I selected Silverfast on the basis of doing a better job with Kodachrome than Scanvue. Specifically:
IR dust and scratch removal is just not an issue with me, because it can be used for only a small fraction of my total material. I will use Lightroom and Photoshop as needed for that purpose.
Yes, I know that the Silverfast interface is challenging, but since I don't need to actually edit images in Silverfast, I can safely ignore many of the settings. Also, I would add that since I already know how to use the DEVELOP image editing tools in Lightroom, I don't think I would have the same learning curve as someone without that experience.
My specific use case is that I have this scanner, including the SF-210 batch feeder, which has a 50 slide capacity. I have, at a rough estimate 30-40 thousand slides, all Kodak. The vast majority are Kodachrome, with Ektachrome probably 15-20%. I also have about 10 thousand B&W negatives, and maybe one thousand color negatives, all 35 mm.
So I selected Silverfast on the basis of doing a better job with Kodachrome than Scanvue. Specifically:
- Multi-scanning Kodachrome produced much more shadow detail with Silverfast. With Scanvue, there was no perceptible increase in shadow details.
- Silverfast took about 1/3 to 1/2 the time to multi-scan than Scanvue, and the scanner made less noise.
- On several multi-scanned slides, Scanvue actually "unsharpened" a diagonal line. There was no such issue with Silverfast.
IR dust and scratch removal is just not an issue with me, because it can be used for only a small fraction of my total material. I will use Lightroom and Photoshop as needed for that purpose.
Yes, I know that the Silverfast interface is challenging, but since I don't need to actually edit images in Silverfast, I can safely ignore many of the settings. Also, I would add that since I already know how to use the DEVELOP image editing tools in Lightroom, I don't think I would have the same learning curve as someone without that experience.