FS4000 & VueScan; Here we go again

[brits]

For several years I have been using an FS4000 to (slowly) scan a
backlog of color negs (mostly Reala). I never did get a scan I liked
with FilmGet so quickly moved to VueScan which got me to where I wanted
to be after a fair bit of work in Photoshop. I updated VueScan from
time to time with no problems - since August I was using VueScan
8.3.58. Then, out of nowhere, the scans were garbage; Lots of
yellow/orange horizontal bands with a faint image behind. At first I
thought the scanner was malfunctioning but the problem was not apparent
when using FilmGet. So in desperation I updated VueScan again to
8.3.86. Now the banding is gone but the scans look like they have been
shot blasted at 50-100% mag or higher. This goes away if I turn off the
IR cleaning completely in VueScan.

I admit I am tired of the slow FS4000 anyway and was thinking of baling
out for the Nikon 5000ED (if any retailer ever has one in stock). My
questions are:

Is the Nikon Scan software good for negatives? If not, is Vuescan a
more reliable partner for the Nikon scanners than the FS4000?

Apologies if you have all been here before ...

 

[Roger S.]

Hi there, I also use a FS4000US with Vuescan and scan quite a bit of
Reala.
Some of the recent VS versions had pretty horrible bugs with Vuescan- I
don't remember the bug you describe however.

If you would like, I can send you a semi-recent version of VS that I
believe functions perfectly (good IR cleaning, no obvious bugs) along
with an .ini for Reala and sample levels adjustments to use with Reala
in Photoshop. If you don't use Photoshop or don't want to scan with
color balance set to none, I can just give you the ini. I get
reasonablly good color balance without a whole lot of work. Just email
the address I use on this forum.

I haven't seen the LS-5000 with color negatives but I would be
surprised if there were nothing in the archives here or on photo.net

Roger