VueScan Big Picture Suggestions Wanted

[David O'Rourke]

Hello Ed

I'd have to say the best UI for scanning software was on an Imacon 845 that
I worked with for an afternoon. It had floating pallettes for various
functions which could be moved or closed as required. The preview was a
window which could be sized and zoomed as needed. Though the machine only
had one monitor, I would expect that dual monitors was supported as this is
usually an OS feature

Customizable menus or tool bars would also be handy.

I'd like to see curves and levels as well, with the added feature of being
able to move control points in tandem.

Being able to copy settings from one film holder to another would be a great
help.

TWAIN operation sounds interesting as this would save a step when the target
application is Photoshop or the like. This is how do things, best scan
possible, save the image, then open in Photoshop to finish. That save the
image step can be quite slow at times.

While on the subject of slow times, perhaps it would possible to speed up
some of the operations. I feel that my Pentium 4 behaves more like a 386
when using Vuescan, then I switch to Photoshop and its like warp speed.

I'd not bother with picture arrays on a flatbed as this will open up
problems of the "sweet spot" on the table. A little different with an x-y
scanning fladbed.

Thanks for the qreat work Ed.

Best

David O'Rourke

 

[Larry]

1. Make it a photoshop plugin

2. Make it handle raw digital camera files as good as some of the
best raw file processors out there. As people move to digital I
continue to have to remind them to shoot raw and then post process if
you want to save as much latitude and white balance options as
possible. Some of the software even alow for you to adjust the "look"
of the image as if you were change film types.

I would think that in the future negative scanners would become less
and high end digital cameras would become more the norm. I have a
Canon 10D but still love the negative scans that come out of my Nikon
LS2000 with vuescan better.

 

[Erik Krause]

I see. But I guess an overexposed area is needed in a slide in order to
obtain useful results with the advanced workflow.

I always use the leader of a film I changed in bright daylight.

I agree that this
film-base color business needs beter documentation. For instance, how
much of a slide needs to be overexposed, and do you need a completely
unexposed part of a negative film to make it work? To be on the safe
side I always scan a completely unexposed frame to determine the mask,
with mixed results.

My experience scanning the unexposed first or last frame of the roll
are good. Reasonable consistent results even between different rolls of
same film brand from the same lab.

In fact I use normalized film base color values (least value = 1.0,
others scaled proportionally), since I discovered that too low values
cause clipping and that film base color changes linearily with CCD
exposure as long as the film is not overexposed.

Somehow I have the impression that the advanced
workflow for negs is most effective if the 'calibration frame' not only
contains an unexposed area, but also some blue sky, green grass and
human skin tones.

I don't know how it exactly works, but in theory it should go for an
average of the brightest pixels in the image. If you use normalized
film base color values and you leave black and white point to 0.0% you
will get the whole dynamic range of the film, which might result in
very low contrast images. But you gain the opportunity of using the
part of the original dynamic range you want.

I never tried it for slides, but I will try because, indeed, the
'neutral' setting always leaves me with a color cast.

It's worth the effort

 

[Wilfred]

In fact I use normalized film base color values (least value = 1.0,
others scaled proportionally), since I discovered that too low values
cause clipping and that film base color changes linearily with CCD
exposure as long as the film is not overexposed.

So you change the values VueScan comes up with by multiplying them with
the same factor, so that the lowest value is 1.0?

 

[Carsten Schurig]

Hi Ed,

most important for me is, that you *do not drop* the development for
Linux! I don't want to switch to another OS...

Thanks for your great work.

Cheers,
Carsten

 

[Ed Hamrick]

most important for me is, that you *do not drop* the development for
Linux! I don't want to switch to another OS...

A few statistics - 6% of the VueScan downloads are for the Linux
version, but only 1.6% of the VueScan purchases are for the Linux
version.

It would be useful to get big picture suggestions for how to increase
the percentage of Linux downloads and purchases.

Regards,
Ed Hamrick

 

[Ralf R. Radermacher]

It would be useful to get big picture suggestions for how to increase
the percentage of Linux downloads and purchases.

Now, that's an easy one, albeit from the REALLY BIG picture department:
get MS to do a Linux version of MS Office. ;-)

Ralf

 

[Richard Stonehouse]

The message <[email protected]>

most important for me is, that you *do not drop* the development for
Linux! I don't want to switch to another OS...

Seconded.

[...]

It would be useful to get big picture suggestions for how to increase
the percentage of Linux downloads and purchases.

One small thing that would help me (a Linux user who got in when VueScan
was free) is a wider range of payment options. It appears, from the web
site, that you only take credit cards. I have no credit card, or debit
card either - though I'm not sure this is a Linux-specific deficiency!
So the options would be PayPal, banker's overseas draft (i.e. cheque
drawn on a US bank) or cash by registered mail. I don't object to paying
for good software and would be happy to send you $79.95 for the Pro
upgrade - but unfortunately, failing any of those options, can't.

 

[Ed Hamrick]

A Big Picture improvement would be persistent and reliable ini-files
between versions in my opinion.

I implemented this in the change from 7.6.84 to 8.0. The old
..ini files from 7.6.84 should work in 8.0, and I hope to continue
this.

Regards,
Ed Hamrick

 

[Ed Hamrick]

* Easier way to compare different settings for the same scan by
switching between images in the preview window. I vaguely remember
there's a keystroke for this mentioned somewhere in the manual but I
can't find it anymore.

Click while holding down the Alt key (mnemoic Alternate images).

Regards,
Ed Hamrick

 

[Ed Hamrick]

I've summarized below the feedback I got from
responses here and responses by e-mail.

The number of times each thing was suggested
is on the left.

Thanks for all of your inputs!

Regards,
Ed Hamrick

Big Picture Suggestions Summary

7 Curves
5 Persistent .ini files between versions
4 More documentation & improved User's Guide
3 Task Wizards
3 Better manipulation of histogram
3 User interface cosmetic changes
2 Contrast and saturation controls like brightness control
2 Improve cropping
2 Better control over which options are visible
2 Scratch removal/grain reduction (without IR in scanner)
2 Faster updating of preview window and saving
2 Continue Linux version
Wizard for setting orange mask of films
Levels (like in Photoshop)
Better scratch removal (with IR in scanner)
Better support for scanning panoramas
Better support for scanning multiple photos on a flatbed
Support writing PDF files
Fast low-resolution preview on Minolta
Fast 1:1 zoom
Eliminate confusion from separate Slide & Image settings
Default for saving as TIFF in Professional Edition
Option to name files individually when saving
Option for noise reduction in shadow areas
Photoshop plugin
TWAIN interface
Improved support for raw digital camera files
Support FreeBSD
Customizable menus and tool bars
More payment options other than credit/debit card
Using analog gain to correct for film base color
Command line interface to VueScan
Reduce the number of $ watermarks
Improve strip film frame offset on Nikon scanners
Put actual file name next to images in index .bmp file
Support for ASF scanning libraries for GEM and ICE
Insertion of copyright watermark
Better IR cleaning (like Photoshop healing tool)
Configurable button bar
Color correction of individual frames in a batch scan

Things that people said wasn't important to them:

6 User Interface cosmetic changes
3 TWAIN
3 Pricing changes
2 Mac OS X Image Capture
Curves
Support writing PDF files

 

[RSD99]

"Ralf R. Radermacher" posted:
"...
get MS to do a Linux version of MS Office. ;-)
...."

Check out OpenOffice.org ... it's available in the following
versions ...

Windows: 64.1 MB
Linux: 76.4 MB
Solaris (S): 86.6 MB
Solaris (I): 78.3 MB


http://www.openoffice.org/

It actually works very well, and I have converted 99.99999%
of the tasks that I formerly did with Micro$loth Orifice to
use the Sun Office / OpenOffice freeware version(s).

 

[Ralf Hartings]

Hi Ed,

most important for me is, that you *do not drop* the development for
Linux! I don't want to switch to another OS...

Thanks for your great work.

Cheers,
Carsten

Agree to 100% !


Ralf Hartings

 

[Ralf Hartings]

I've summarized below the feedback I got from
responses here and responses by e-mail.

Things that people said wasn't important to them:

6 User Interface cosmetic changes

Note: This may be true for the most frequent users (the ones visiting
the newsgroup very often). But I think it will attract more NEW
customers, and that's quite important isn't it?

Ralf Hartings

 

[Erik Krause]

So you change the values VueScan comes up with by multiplying them with
the same factor, so that the lowest value is 1.0?

Exactly. At the moment I'm experimenting with a technique that promises
to be even better. Unfortunately it works for Nikon Scanners only. I
adjust RGB analog gain in order to get the same film base color values
for all three channels.

On a scanner that has a linear relation between CCD exposure and film
base color values (like my Nikon LS40) this is easily done by inverting
the film base color values and normalizing with the least result to 1.0
(If I get values 0.8, 0.5 and 0.4, inverted values are 1.25, 2 and 2.5
and after division by 1.25: 1.0, 1.6 and 2 f.e.).

If these values are used for RGB analog gain, determined film base
color values should be more or less equal for all color channels. They
can be set to 1.0, 1.0, 1.0 in order to avoid clipping...

 

[Erik Krause]

It would be useful to get big picture suggestions for how to increase
the percentage of Linux downloads and purchases.

Include VueScan in major linux distributions.

 

[Bart van der Wolf]

SNIP

Note: This may be true for the most frequent users (the ones
visiting the newsgroup very often). But I think it will attract
more NEW customers, and that's quite important isn't it?

I agree with that, and the same goes for Curves, because you can only
make a first impression once...

Bart

 

[Tom Bombadil]

I've summarized below the feedback I got from
responses here and responses by e-mail.

The number of times each thing was suggested
is on the left.

Thanks for all of your inputs!

Regards,
Ed Hamrick

Big Picture Suggestions Summary

7 Curves

....

If it's not too late to weigh in:

I think Curves in VueScan would be a classic example of bloat.
If VueScan is a scanning application and not a replacement for
Photoshop, then this feature is entirely redundant. Where would
you draw the line on image editing features?

May I also express no need for TWAIN. I usually save raw files,
and the workflow is thus different for me.

-Tom

 

[Ralf R. Radermacher]

I think Curves in VueScan would be a classic example of bloat.
If VueScan is a scanning application and not a replacement for
Photoshop, then this feature is entirely redundant. Where would
you draw the line on image editing features?

Right. Away with all those silly profiles, brightness, colour, and gamma
controls. Shove pure 48 bit raw data into Photoshop and let them cope
with it. Oh, and don't forget cropping can be done just as easily in any
old graphics program.

Ralf

 

[Bart van der Wolf]

SNIP

Right. Away with all those silly profiles, brightness, colour, and
gamma controls. Shove pure 48 bit raw data into Photoshop and
let them cope with it. Oh, and don't forget cropping can be done
just as easily in any old graphics program.

Sarcasm noted ;-), and I agree.

In fact, it is possible to augment the traditional Curves adjustment
with novel tonescaling functionality. In addition, not everybody uses
PS to post-process their images (I do, but I'm still not everybody
;-)).

Bart