I downloaded the Vuescan trial version, and found it be the Standard
instead of the Pro version. Is that right? Without the many options
described in the user's guide, the Standard version's canned workflow
isn't a good way to evaluate the product. In particular, it is
impossible to tell a scan's quality is a result of how VS controls a
scanner's hw, or how VS post processes a raw scan by sw.

The user's guide has a long list of supported film types. But the
Fujichromes and Kodachromes, which I use, are missing. Why? Nor can I
find in the guide how to specify a film type.

Is there a good VS tutorial written by one of its faithful users?

It is the standard version. If you want to see what the (mostly)
unprocessed scan looks like, set color balance to "none" and output a
16 bit Tiff.

For slides, none of the "film types" are useful. Scan as "image" (not
color slide) and either set color balance manually, white balance, or
none. The IT8 profiling feature is useful to me for slides, but you
need VS pro to use it.

I don't know of a real tutorial, but the archives of this group are a
great place to start. Search for some posts from Erik Krause, Bart van
der Wolf and others.

(E-Mail Removed) wrote:
> I downloaded the Vuescan trial version, and found it be the Standard
> instead of the Pro version. Is that right? Without the many options
> described in the user's guide, the Standard version's canned workflow
> isn't a good way to evaluate the product. In particular, it is
> impossible to tell a scan's quality is a result of how VS controls a
> scanner's hw, or how VS post processes a raw scan by sw.
>
> The user's guide has a long list of supported film types. But the
> Fujichromes and Kodachromes, which I use, are missing. Why? Nor can I
> find in the guide how to specify a film type.
>
> Is there a good VS tutorial written by one of its faithful users?

On Wed, 14 Jun 2006 23:49:26 GMT, (E-Mail Removed) wrote:

>I downloaded the Vuescan trial version, and found it be the Standard
>instead of the Pro version. Is that right? Without the many options
>described in the user's guide, the Standard version's canned workflow
>isn't a good way to evaluate the product. In particular, it is
>impossible to tell a scan's quality is a result of how VS controls a
>scanner's hw, or how VS post processes a raw scan by sw.

There's actually only one version and features are turned on and off
depending on which key you purchase.

But, you're right, if you do want to do extensive and thorough testing
to truly evaluate the program, that's not possible with the trial
version. And there's a reason for that... ;o)

VueScan is very buggy and unreliable so any testing you do will only
be valid for that particular version. The next release reshuffles the
deck completely. And because VueScan is so buggy these releases come
out fast and furious as the author trips over himself to try and fix
the bugs introduced in the previous "fix", and so on...

But you put your finger on it by making a distinction between what the
scanner delivers (i.e. hw) and any processing that takes place (i.e.
sw). VueScan is notorious for messing with this data in order to try
and hide the bugs and this applies to the so-called raw mode as well.

If you skim the archives you'll find many specific complaints you may
want to look into if they are relevant to you. It's second hand, but
the only other alternative is to actually purchase the program.

Most people don't care about all that and there are many happy users
with a low quality threshold (e.g. a tiny Web JPG or a quick print).

BTW, if you're concerned about data integrity (as your question seem
to imply) are there any reasons why you can't use the native scanner
program and scan raw? Usually, just turning all the editing off will
results in pure data. Or are you running an OS on which native
software doesn't work, such as Linux?

Don.

"Roger S." wrote:
>
> It is the standard version. If you want to see what the (mostly)
> unprocessed scan looks like, set color balance to "none" and output a
> 16 bit Tiff.

Thanks for confirming that. Ed could have stated that more clearly
instead at his site. His said to "Use the "About" menu command in
VueScan to display what Edition you have", but that did not reveal any
edition info, only ordering solicitation.

I'll try what you suggested.

> For slides, none of the "film types" are useful.

Not sure why different film types are useful for negatives and not for
slides. Is this statement only for VS or for scanner sw in general? Can
you clarify?

> Scan as "image" (not
> color slide) and either set color balance manually, white balance, or
> none.

The VS guide also suggested using "image" instead of "slide film",
saying that "The difference between "image" and "slide film" is subtle."
But the preview difference switching between "image" and "color slide"
is drastic and dramatically. It is done by sw and not by rescanning
since there was no scanner movement.

I find the VS guide not any better than the scanners' user manuals -
poorly organized, incomplete, and often incoherent. It is definitely
worse by not including a single screen shot. A good business person
would realize that a good manual can save him many hours of responding
to user inquiries (assuming that he responds), not to mention bashing by
unhappy users.

> The IT8 profiling feature is useful to me for slides, but you
> need VS pro to use it.

One reason I'm trying VS is for generating an IT8 profile. See my
response to Don.

> I don't know of a real tutorial, but the archives of this group are a
> great place to start. Search for some posts from Erik Krause, Bart van
> der Wolf and others.

I'll try searching the archive. Thanks.

>
> (E-Mail Removed) wrote:
> > I downloaded the Vuescan trial version, and found it be the Standard
> > instead of the Pro version. Is that right? Without the many options
> > described in the user's guide, the Standard version's canned workflow
> > isn't a good way to evaluate the product. In particular, it is
> > impossible to tell a scan's quality is a result of how VS controls a
> > scanner's hw, or how VS post processes a raw scan by sw.
> >
> > The user's guide has a long list of supported film types. But the
> > Fujichromes and Kodachromes, which I use, are missing. Why? Nor can I
> > find in the guide how to specify a film type.
> >
> > Is there a good VS tutorial written by one of its faithful users?

Don, I'm aware of how people feel about VS here. Hence I waited a long
time to try it out. I'll try to be objective with my comments.

Don wrote:
>
> On Wed, 14 Jun 2006 23:49:26 GMT, (E-Mail Removed) wrote:

> But you put your finger on it by making a distinction between what the
> scanner delivers (i.e. hw) and any processing that takes place (i.e.
> sw). VueScan is notorious for messing with this data in order to try
> and hide the bugs and this applies to the so-called raw mode as well.

To be fair, hiding what is being done by hw and sw seems to be the norm
with scanner (and digital camera) manufacturers. I give the VS guide
credit for describing and separating a raw scan and post processing. But
then the guide fails miserably by *not* spelling out how each option and
feature falls into the hw and sw bin. See my response to Roger regarding
"image" and "slide film".

> If you skim the archives you'll find many specific complaints you may
> want to look into if they are relevant to you. It's second hand, but
> the only other alternative is to actually purchase the program.
>
> Most people don't care about all that and there are many happy users
> with a low quality threshold (e.g. a tiny Web JPG or a quick print).

Yes, different products suit different users' needs and that's how it
should be. It would be nice if the posts here can provide some context
when they support or bash a product. If I just want a simple workflow
for web jpg or a quick print (such as the VS Standard's), the native sw
that comes with my scanner can do just as well. If VS' claim to fame is
being able to squeeze the most out of a scanner' hw, or it can
postprocess better than PS, then provide a demo version that can demo
these.

> BTW, if you're concerned about data integrity (as your question seem
> to imply) are there any reasons why you can't use the native scanner
> program and scan raw? Usually, just turning all the editing off will
> results in pure data. Or are you running an OS on which native
> software doesn't work, such as Linux?

I am a believer to get the most out of what I have, and only purchase
something that I can prove can solve a problem. I have been using my
Minolta 5400's native sw for raw slide scans for some time on my PC. One
problem I have with my workflow is the PS overhead needed to gamma and
color/tonal correct the raw scans. I have yet to find a good gamma
adjusting method to brighten the raw scans without causing other
problems. Adjusting levels and curves, or using screen blending option
etc. can brighten the scans. But they all would cause one or more
problems such as messing up contrast, saturation and color accuracy,
etc. Then I have to tweak PS to fix these.

My reason for VS evaluation is to see if it can help in this regard. My
wishful thinking (extremely unlikely) is that the 5400 has a hidden hw
gamma control (separate from the hw exposure control) which VS can
tweak. Or VS can generate better scanner and film profiles to produce a
better gamma corrected raw scan (probably more likely).

<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>> For slides, none of the "film types" are useful.
>
> Not sure why different film types are useful for negatives and not for
> slides. Is this statement only for VS or for scanner sw in general? Can
> you clarify?

For slides, what you want (usually) is exactly what you see when you look at
the slide. So playing film type (and/or IT8 sorts of) games doesn't (in
general) make a lot of sense.

You can, of course, use slide film (with corrections) to do colorimetrically
correct photography. But landscape types generally think the "character"
provided by the film is a feature, not a problem.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

(E-Mail Removed) wrote:
> Don, I'm aware of how people feel about VS here. Hence I waited a long
> time to try it out. I'll try to be objective with my comments.

[much snipping]

> My reason for VS evaluation is to see if it can help in this regard. My
> wishful thinking (extremely unlikely) is that the 5400 has a hidden hw
> gamma control (separate from the hw exposure control) which VS can
> tweak. Or VS can generate better scanner and film profiles to produce a
> better gamma corrected raw scan (probably more likely).

My experience with VueScan is that the internals seem to work ok, but
the user interface and documentation are awful, and Ed Hamrick seems to
have a bit of a 'tude problem; could be wrong about the last one,
though. I haven't investigated gamma correction; perhaps someone who's
looked at it seriously can provide some hard data.

The UI simply sucks. For example, it's unpredictable: change something
here and another change occurs over there, which of course you won't
notice until you've scanned 20 or 30 images. And, Ed seems to make
small, arbitrary changes with each release, often leaving me to wonder
"what happened to X; did I somehow turn it off?" As for the
documentation, it's incomplete and outdated; nuff said.

Once you sort things out, though, it seems to generally do what it's
supposed to: generate useable profiles, do batch scannning and
conversion, perform somewhat useable OCR, etc. Whether or not that's
worth $90 US is up to you: I wish I'd saved my money, but now that I
have it I use it.

Dan

--
In Lowes Crossroads, Delaware, it is a violation of local law for any
pilot or passenger to carry an ice cream cone in their pocket while
either flying or waiting to board a plane.

> >> For slides, none of the "film types" are useful.
> >
> > Not sure why different film types are useful for negatives and not for
> > slides. Is this statement only for VS or for scanner sw in general? Can
> > you clarify?
>

I should clarify that I don't find film types for negatives at all
useful either. They are generally outdated, for films I don't use, and
none of them seem to work right for me. They're supposed to be canned
solutions to help you get good color with minimal work, but I find they
just give you bad color and more work correcting it. I do think the
IT8 profiling has some value in getting the scan to match the slide,
but if you want Vuescan to give you profiles you can use in other
programs, you are not going to be happy. If that's what you want, try
getting an IT8 target and the freeware program SCARSE.

For color balance, I find this workflow much more useful, and I
recently started using a QP card under sunlight in place of the grey
card and white card:

http://groups.google.com/group/comp....36a237cdaf9032

Dan Rempel wrote
(in article
<(E-Mail Removed)>):

> (E-Mail Removed) wrote:
>> Don, I'm aware of how people feel about VS here. Hence I waited a long
>> time to try it out. I'll try to be objective with my comments.
>
> [much snipping]
>
>> My reason for VS evaluation is to see if it can help in this regard. My
>> wishful thinking (extremely unlikely) is that the 5400 has a hidden hw
>> gamma control (separate from the hw exposure control) which VS can
>> tweak. Or VS can generate better scanner and film profiles to produce a
>> better gamma corrected raw scan (probably more likely).
>
> My experience with VueScan is that the internals seem to work ok, but
> the user interface and documentation are awful, and Ed Hamrick seems to
> have a bit of a 'tude problem; could be wrong about the last one,
> though. I haven't investigated gamma correction; perhaps someone who's
> looked at it seriously can provide some hard data.
>
> The UI simply sucks. For example, it's unpredictable: change something
> here and another change occurs over there, which of course you won't
> notice until you've scanned 20 or 30 images. And, Ed seems to make
> small, arbitrary changes with each release, often leaving me to wonder
> "what happened to X; did I somehow turn it off?" As for the
> documentation, it's incomplete and outdated; nuff said.
>
> Once you sort things out, though, it seems to generally do what it's
> supposed to: generate useable profiles, do batch scannning and
> conversion, perform somewhat useable OCR, etc. Whether or not that's
> worth $90 US is up to you: I wish I'd saved my money, but now that I
> have it I use it.


Sounds about right.

VueScan cries out for being bought out by a real software
company and overhauled. It supports (to varying degrees) a ton
of hardware, but the UI looks like it was designed by a
schizophrenic that lost his sight 4 years ago in 3 out of his 4
personalities.

It needs an "Apple makeover".

--
Randy Howard (2reply remove FOOBAR)
"The power of accurate observation is called cynicism by those
who have not got it." - George Bernard Shaw

On Fri, 16 Jun 2006 01:40:36 GMT, Randy Howard
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:



>Sounds about right.
>
>VueScan cries out for being bought out by a real software
>company and overhauled. It supports (to varying degrees) a ton
>of hardware, but the UI looks like it was designed by a
>schizophrenic that lost his sight 4 years ago in 3 out of his 4
>personalities.
>
>It needs an "Apple makeover".


My $0.02.

A scanner driver needs only a few basic capabilities.

It should allow for and fully support focus control, if
it exists on the scanner.

Ditto for exposure controls. Not post-processing, but
integration times in milliseconds per scanline. For CIS
and Nikon film scanners, it should support LED duty-cycle
control, per-channel. [In the Nikon, the Master gain
control would be ms/scanline, and the per-channel
controls would use LED duty cycles.]

It needs a decent size preview window with a
"densitometer" function (aka Photoshop "Info" tool.")

The scanner driver then needs a working curves and/or
Levels tool, using Photoshop's UI.

Vuescan has never had these last two, and so IMO
it barely qualifies for serious work. I don't need a scanner
driver to look pretty, but I can't work without a Curves
or Levels tool.

Vuescan has proven handy on a few occasions
when I thought the scanner hardware might be in
question.


rafe b
www.terrapinphoto.com