Vuescan behaviour of handling RAW files totally changed since 8.3.39

After installing the most recent version (8.3.53) of Vuescan I've
noticed that scanning my NikonScan "raw" files does not work as it used
to (e.g. 8.3.39).

I obtain the raw scans from NikonScan 4.0.2 by disabling Nikon Color
Management and setting Gamma to 1.0 and apply the ICE dust removal as
described in the following article
http://groups.google.de/group/comp....679715d8b60d57e.


When I now post-process the files with Vuescan they look as dark as the
raw scans, totally different from what I got in 8.3.39. See examples via
the below links (both obtained from the same raw file):
http://www.olafmeyer.de/vuescan/dnp_8_3_39.jpg
http://www.olafmeyer.de/vuescan/dnp_8_3_53.jpg

I'm pretty shocked, since I've just scanned thousands of slides with
NikonScan in order to do the post-processing with Vuescan. Due to
unpredictable behavior with each new Vuescan release I guess it's very
unsafe to do this!

How safe is it actually to create raw scans in VueScan? These are the
files that I want to archive, so that I have easy access to the original
scans even in years from now. It seems pretty unsafe to me due to
unpredictable changes in the software I'm using. I some how feel locked
into a propriatary raw format ...

Olaf

Olaf wrote:
> I'm pretty shocked, since I've just scanned thousands of slides with
> NikonScan in order to do the post-processing with Vuescan. Due to
> unpredictable behavior with each new Vuescan release I guess it's very
> unsafe to do this!
>
> How safe is it actually to create raw scans in VueScan? These are the
> files that I want to archive, so that I have easy access to the original
> scans even in years from now. It seems pretty unsafe to me due to
> unpredictable changes in the software I'm using. I some how feel locked
> into a propriatary raw format ...
>
> Olaf

That's strange. Have you written to Ed about this? Are you sure VS is
set to output to a color space like AdobeRGB and not device RGB? Is it
set to save Tiffs and not RAW files?

Regarding creating Raw scans, if I were you, I'd continue to use
NikonScan as at least you know what it delivers. Does NikonScan not do
something that you need Vuescan for?

Roger S. schrieb:
> Olaf wrote:
>> I'm pretty shocked, since I've just scanned thousands of slides with
>> NikonScan in order to do the post-processing with Vuescan. Due to
>> unpredictable behavior with each new Vuescan release I guess it's very
>> unsafe to do this!
>>
>> How safe is it actually to create raw scans in VueScan? These are the
>> files that I want to archive, so that I have easy access to the original
>> scans even in years from now. It seems pretty unsafe to me due to
>> unpredictable changes in the software I'm using. I some how feel locked
>> into a propriatary raw format ...
>>
>> Olaf
>
> That's strange. Have you written to Ed about this? Are you sure VS is
> set to output to a color space like AdobeRGB and not device RGB? Is it
> set to save Tiffs and not RAW files?

I've doubled checked. Settings are as they should be. When scanning from
a file you cannot output as raw, but only to tiff or jpeg. I'm using
AdobeRGB as the output colorspace.

> Regarding creating Raw scans, if I were you, I'd continue to use
> NikonScan as at least you know what it delivers. Does NikonScan not do
> something that you need Vuescan for?

NikonScan is not capable of processing raw scans. I would need to do the
complete scan in one step. That has several drawbacks in particular when
batch scanning. I also do not like the colors that NikonScan produces,
thus I've chosen the described workflow, which has been working good
until now ...

Only other option that I see is Silverfast, but as we all know it's also
far from bug free and very pricy (particularly since I would need to buy
the scanner and HDR version ...)

Olaf

Regarding Silverfast HDR, you can get the DC version as it does the same
thing + handles digital camera files if that is of interest.

The safest format to save in for archive is uncompressed TIFF .

regards,

Olaf wrote:
> Roger S. schrieb:
>
>> Olaf wrote:
>>
>>> I'm pretty shocked, since I've just scanned thousands of slides with
>>> NikonScan in order to do the post-processing with Vuescan. Due to
>>> unpredictable behavior with each new Vuescan release I guess it's very
>>> unsafe to do this!
>>>
>>> How safe is it actually to create raw scans in VueScan? These are the
>>> files that I want to archive, so that I have easy access to the original
>>> scans even in years from now. It seems pretty unsafe to me due to
>>> unpredictable changes in the software I'm using. I some how feel locked
>>> into a propriatary raw format ...
>>>
>>> Olaf
>>
>>
>> That's strange. Have you written to Ed about this? Are you sure VS is
>> set to output to a color space like AdobeRGB and not device RGB? Is it
>> set to save Tiffs and not RAW files?
>
>
> I've doubled checked. Settings are as they should be. When scanning from
> a file you cannot output as raw, but only to tiff or jpeg. I'm using
> AdobeRGB as the output colorspace.
>
>> Regarding creating Raw scans, if I were you, I'd continue to use
>> NikonScan as at least you know what it delivers. Does NikonScan not do
>> something that you need Vuescan for?
>
>
> NikonScan is not capable of processing raw scans. I would need to do the
> complete scan in one step. That has several drawbacks in particular when
> batch scanning. I also do not like the colors that NikonScan produces,
> thus I've chosen the described workflow, which has been working good
> until now ...
>
> Only other option that I see is Silverfast, but as we all know it's also
> far from bug free and very pricy (particularly since I would need to buy
> the scanner and HDR version ...)
>
> Olaf

Olaf,

email me off list if you need a copy of the old version. remove the nospam.

regards,

degrub wrote:

> Regarding Silverfast HDR, you can get the DC version as it does the same
> thing + handles digital camera files if that is of interest.
>
> The safest format to save in for archive is uncompressed TIFF .
>
> regards,
>
> Olaf wrote:
>
>> Roger S. schrieb:
>>
>>> Olaf wrote:
>>>
>>>> I'm pretty shocked, since I've just scanned thousands of slides with
>>>> NikonScan in order to do the post-processing with Vuescan. Due to
>>>> unpredictable behavior with each new Vuescan release I guess it's very
>>>> unsafe to do this!
>>>>
>>>> How safe is it actually to create raw scans in VueScan? These are the
>>>> files that I want to archive, so that I have easy access to the
>>>> original
>>>> scans even in years from now. It seems pretty unsafe to me due to
>>>> unpredictable changes in the software I'm using. I some how feel locked
>>>> into a propriatary raw format ...
>>>>
>>>> Olaf
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> That's strange. Have you written to Ed about this? Are you sure VS is
>>> set to output to a color space like AdobeRGB and not device RGB? Is it
>>> set to save Tiffs and not RAW files?
>>
>>
>>
>> I've doubled checked. Settings are as they should be. When scanning
>> from a file you cannot output as raw, but only to tiff or jpeg. I'm
>> using AdobeRGB as the output colorspace.
>>
>>> Regarding creating Raw scans, if I were you, I'd continue to use
>>> NikonScan as at least you know what it delivers. Does NikonScan not do
>>> something that you need Vuescan for?
>>
>>
>>
>> NikonScan is not capable of processing raw scans. I would need to do
>> the complete scan in one step. That has several drawbacks in
>> particular when batch scanning. I also do not like the colors that
>> NikonScan produces, thus I've chosen the described workflow, which has
>> been working good until now ...
>>
>> Only other option that I see is Silverfast, but as we all know it's
>> also far from bug free and very pricy (particularly since I would need
>> to buy the scanner and HDR version ...)
>>
>> Olaf

> When scanning from
> a file you cannot output as raw, but only to tiff or jpeg.

Actually, you can output RAWs from RAWs (i.e. when scanning from a file), by
enabling the "Enable raw from disk" option under the "Preferences " tab
(advanced mode).

Linus

On Sun, 18 Jun 2006 19:03:53 +0200, Olaf <nospam@nospam.com> wrote:

>NikonScan is not capable of processing raw scans. I would need to do the
>complete scan in one step.

That's just not true.

You can load any file in NikonScan (not just the NEF format but also
TIF, JPG etc.) and edit it any which way you want. Use File/Open or
click on the Open Folder icon in the toolbar (first on the left).

Furthermore, you can also import Photoshop curves and levels settings
(*.alc and *.alv files) into NikonScan. Open the Curves palette and
click on the down triangle in the upper right corner. This will drop
down a menu. Click on "Import Curve Settings". This defaults to
NikonScan curves (*.ncv) but if you click on Files Of Type you'll also
get "Photoshop Levels and Curves".

Indeed, if you're scanning raw using NikonScan and then switching to
Vuescan for post-processing that's the absolutely worst thing you can
ever do because Vuescan is so buggy and inferior. It will just end up
totally mutilating your carefully scanned raw files with NikonScan.

Don.

degrub wrote:
> Regarding Silverfast HDR, you can get the DC version as it does the same
> thing + handles digital camera files if that is of interest.

OK, thanks for the suggestion. Since I now work with DSLRs that sounds
like a reasonable idea Does it have any advantages over using Adobe
CS2 with CameraRaw plugin?

> The safest format to save in for archive is uncompressed TIFF .

The question here is which files to archive. So far I've archived
NikonScan 'raw' gamma1.0 scans in uncompressed TIFF format. But
post-processing them with vuescan is a risky business as my results
show. I don't know any other software to post-process them with ...
Other option is to store vuescan raw files, but then I'm stuck with
vuescan. And I'm now pretty sure that I don't want to lock myself this way.

I think I will re-evaluate Silverfast, but then I'm probably also locked
into silverfast ... Is there a safer way to obtain raw scans vor
archiving purposes?

I've used three different vuescan releases and get 3 totally different
results and some of them are obviously wrong. It's fairly clear that the
software is released without doing proper regression testing ...

Here are links to the three different results, all using the same raw
file and identical settings. Actually version 8.3.39 is also buggy, but
8.3.31 was OK. Judge yourself.

http://www.olafmeyer.de/vuescan/vs_8_3_31.jpg (looks OK)
http://www.olafmeyer.de/vuescan/vs_8_3_39.jpg (obviously corrupt)
http://www.olafmeyer.de/vuescan/vs_8_3_53.jpg (much to dark!)

An unhappy vuescan user,
Olaf

> Olaf wrote:
>> Roger S. schrieb:
>>
>>> Olaf wrote:
>>>
>>>> I'm pretty shocked, since I've just scanned thousands of slides with
>>>> NikonScan in order to do the post-processing with Vuescan. Due to
>>>> unpredictable behavior with each new Vuescan release I guess it's very
>>>> unsafe to do this!
>>>>
>>>> How safe is it actually to create raw scans in VueScan? These are the
>>>> files that I want to archive, so that I have easy access to the
>>>> original
>>>> scans even in years from now. It seems pretty unsafe to me due to
>>>> unpredictable changes in the software I'm using. I some how feel locked
>>>> into a propriatary raw format ...
>>>>
>>>> Olaf
>>>
>>>
>>> That's strange. Have you written to Ed about this? Are you sure VS is
>>> set to output to a color space like AdobeRGB and not device RGB? Is it
>>> set to save Tiffs and not RAW files?
>>
>>
>> I've doubled checked. Settings are as they should be. When scanning
>> from a file you cannot output as raw, but only to tiff or jpeg. I'm
>> using AdobeRGB as the output colorspace.
>>
>>> Regarding creating Raw scans, if I were you, I'd continue to use
>>> NikonScan as at least you know what it delivers. Does NikonScan not do
>>> something that you need Vuescan for?
>>
>>
>> NikonScan is not capable of processing raw scans. I would need to do
>> the complete scan in one step. That has several drawbacks in
>> particular when batch scanning. I also do not like the colors that
>> NikonScan produces, thus I've chosen the described workflow, which has
>> been working good until now ...
>>
>> Only other option that I see is Silverfast, but as we all know it's
>> also far from bug free and very pricy (particularly since I would need
>> to buy the scanner and HDR version ...)
>>
>> Olaf

Don schrieb:
> On Sun, 18 Jun 2006 19:03:53 +0200, Olaf <nospam@nospam.com> wrote:
>
>> NikonScan is not capable of processing raw scans. I would need to do the
>> complete scan in one step.
>
> That's just not true.
>
> You can load any file in NikonScan (not just the NEF format but also
> TIF, JPG etc.) and edit it any which way you want. Use File/Open or
> click on the Open Folder icon in the toolbar (first on the left).

That's not what I call processing raw scans. I don't want to use it as
an image editing tool ...

> Furthermore, you can also import Photoshop curves and levels settings
> (*.alc and *.alv files) into NikonScan. Open the Curves palette and
> click on the down triangle in the upper right corner. This will drop
> down a menu. Click on "Import Curve Settings". This defaults to
> NikonScan curves (*.ncv) but if you click on Files Of Type you'll also
> get "Photoshop Levels and Curves".

> Indeed, if you're scanning raw using NikonScan and then switching to
> Vuescan for post-processing that's the absolutely worst thing you can
> ever do because Vuescan is so buggy and inferior. It will just end up
> totally mutilating your carefully scanned raw files with NikonScan.

You obviously aren't a vuescan fan ... Can you suggest a reasonable
workflow that's future proof. The colors I get from NikonScan are not
what I like. I'm looking for a solution that allows me store raw scans
for archiving purposes and then to post-process these raw scans with
another tool ...

Olaf

Olaf wrote:
> That's not what I call processing raw scans. I don't want to use it as
> an image editing tool ...
>
> You obviously aren't a vuescan fan ... Can you suggest a reasonable
> workflow that's future proof. The colors I get from NikonScan are not
> what I like. I'm looking for a solution that allows me store raw scans
> for archiving purposes and then to post-process these raw scans with
> another tool ...
>
> Olaf

If you can dig up a working version of Vuescan, don't upgrade it.
That's as close as future-proof as you can get for your current
workflow, I think.

I think the general concept of scanning with no color correction,
grouping files by film type and then coming up with reference color
correction levels/curves in Photoshop for batch processing makes the
most sense. Photoshop isn't nearly as much of a moving target as
Vuescan and gives you the most control. Step 1 is getting consistent
output from your scanner (even consistently "wrong" is fine as it can
be consistently corrected with an action in PS).