VueScan Big Picture Suggestions Wanted

[Ed Hamrick]

Getting aboard with distributions could be helped by offering some
minimal version that produces usable results for free, gratis. Possibly
nagware style? This is hard road to follow as 'crippled' often comes to
mind as a first suitable adjective.

I looked into this, and even at one time made VueScan completely
free for Linux users. No distributions were interested in bundling
it, even a completely free version, so I started charging for it again.

The problem is that Linux on the desktop is basically dead, and that
it's mostly used in servers. Even Red Hat has tried to drop out of
the Linux on the desktop market.

Regards,
Ed Hamrick

 

[Carsten Schurig]

I looked into this, and even at one time made VueScan completely
free for Linux users. No distributions were interested in bundling
it, even a completely free version, so I started charging for it again.

Did you ask them directly (e.g. SUSE) or did you just wait, that
somebody responsible finds it? Was your license *really* the way, that
any distribution could include it without further investigating?

If you aks e.g. SUSE directly you may get a positive answer. Problem
could be, that there needs to be a clear license about the integration
into any distribution.

The problem is that Linux on the desktop is basically dead, and that
it's mostly used in servers. Even Red Hat has tried to drop out of
the Linux on the desktop market.

Maybe it's in the states. I don't think so for Europe and esp. for
Germany, though. And adding good software to a distribution does help
for that, even if it's a nagware or a version with less functions. I for
instance bought vuscan, because I think it's much better than the other
options available. I bought other software for Linux too, if there's no
competing free counterpart available.

I don't think that you just can give a program away for free and then
hope, that's there a run on it. And Linux users know the Gimp/sane
combination. so they're looking for scanners working with that and never
even know about vuescan.

Just my 0,02 €,

Carsten

 

[Pasi Savolainen]

If you aks e.g. SUSE directly you may get a positive answer. Problem
could be, that there needs to be a clear license about the integration
into any distribution.

I personally couldn't really find any information on how Vuescan could be
redistributed. Of course that information is only an email away, but
this does give the impression that Ed would rather keep distribution to
himself (it _is_ a way to gather market information).

I don't think that you just can give a program away for free and then
hope, that's there a run on it. And Linux users know the Gimp/sane
combination. so they're looking for scanners working with that and never
even know about vuescan.

hmm. Contact manufacturers and offer minimum functionality with linux
version and they get to say 'Supported platform: +Linux(tm)'?
I guess this won't fly as no manufacturer ship VS as is (probably
because it makes switching to other scanner so easy).

 

[Robert Wiegand]

d02.news.aol.com:

I would add one more vote for:

Improve strip film frame offset on Nikon scanners

I have just started using Vuescan with a Nikon Coolscan V
and this is just driving me nuts.

It takes forever to scan a film strip.

 

[Erik Krause]

If curves are included, it would be nice if the effect of the curves
adjustment on the image histogram could be visualized. A combined
levels/curves adjustment would be interesting. After all, the white
point and the black point can also be set by adjusting curves. Including
a central gamma slider might be a problem, though.

I remember a screenshot of levels dialog of a rather common image
editor (photopaint?, paintshop?) that had histogram as background to
the levels and curves dialog, but it was source histogram, IIRC.

In photoshop CS there is live histogram, but this one is computed, not
determined from the image. This would be a possibility for vuescan, too
(with refresh if dialog settings are commited, of course).

 

[Robert Feinman]

The conclusion I've come to is that making VueScan easier to use
for beginning users is by far the most important change I can
make. I'm now thinking about task-specific guides (Wizards)
and how to integrate them with VueScan.

Regards,
Ed Hamrick

I noticed that you didn't include my suggestion about doing profile
assignment and conversion as part of the post scan output.
That is: assign profile from scanner then convert to desired color
space (Adobe RGB, for example). This is the same thing that one
can do when opening an unprofiled file in Photoshop. But what of
those that don't use Photoshop or use a image editor with poor
color management?
Seems most useful to beginners..

 

[W. W. Schwolgin]

If Linux had a colour management system, I suspect there would be a lot
more people using Vuescan and GIMP under Linux. As it is, you have to
switch to Windows and PS, so it's just easier to run Vuescan on Winodows
as well.

So, building a CMS for the linux/Xorg would do it for me

There is a color management system on linux, lcms.
But there are too little applications making use of it. Scribus
(layout program) is one positiv example and of cause VueScan.

Winfried

 

[Bart van der Wolf]

SNIP

I noticed that you didn't include my suggestion about doing
profile assignment and conversion as part of the post scan
output.

VueScan does convert to the output profile choice as specified on the
color tab. Look at what happens to the Output histogram when you
change the output profile choice. That takes care of all applications
that don't have color management capabilities.

Bart

 

[Alexandru Petrescu]

I'd like to ask for suggestions again, but instead of asking for
suggestions for small changes to VueScan (which are always welcome),
I'd like to ask people to put on their thinking caps and think of
big-picture suggestions.

I've not had my thinking cap on when I saw about Digital Negative
(dng) new format of Adobe; people using CS and Elements 3 may have
noticed it already, http:/www.adobe.com/dng

I was thinking it may be a good idea to have an implementation of the
format in Vuescan such as to be able to say Raw File as Tiff or as
DNG.

If DNG is to experience the same success as TIFF, PS and PDF (all
launched
by same company or predecessors) then it will probably be a must for
Vuescan?

Alex

 

[Alexandru Petrescu]

I'd like to ask for suggestions again, but instead of asking for
suggestions for small changes to VueScan (which are always welcome),
I'd like to ask people to put on their thinking caps and think of
big-picture suggestions.

I've had my thinking cap on when I thought that it's probable that
digital SLR's will be more and more remotely controlled thanks
to in-camera wifi-like interfaces. Both Canon and Nikon high end
cameras currently have such interfaces optional.

Which brings in the idea to have Vuescan buttons allowing camera focus,
camera exposure setting and other camera parameters, over a standard
TCP/IP interface.

Or have Vuescan work in tandem with the camera for instananeous display
of the shots taken.

Of course, it all depends on the kind of parameter data the camera
manufacturers are ready to provide to the respective wifi interface.

This would be useful for studio-like photography, but also actual
document scanning with a DSLR.

Alex

 

[Pasi Savolainen]

I've not had my thinking cap on when I saw about Digital Negative
(dng) new format of Adobe; people using CS and Elements 3 may have
noticed it already, http:/www.adobe.com/dng

I was thinking it may be a good idea to have an implementation of the
format in Vuescan such as to be able to say Raw File as Tiff or as
DNG.

Vuescan's RAW image support comes from dcraw -opensource program. If
there will be even one camera using DNG, it's very likely dcraw will
get support for it. And when Ed Hamrick pick up next update for dcraw,
vuescan will gain it 'automatically'.
(Of course there's question of profiles, etc. but vuescan seems to
already have/gaining some support for that even with RAW files)

 

[Ed Hamrick]

Vuescan's RAW image support comes from dcraw -opensource program. If
there will be even one camera using DNG, it's very likely dcraw will
get support for it. And when Ed Hamrick pick up next update for dcraw,
vuescan will gain it 'automatically'.

Yes, this is exactly what I'm planning.

Regards,
Ed Hamrick

 

[Kees van Reeuwijk]

Yes, this is exactly what I'm planning.

Hmm, since DNG seems to be TIFF with some extra (TIFF-compliant) stuff,
can't you just read it directly?

In fact you may even be able to easily /write/ DNG files.

 

[Bryan]

Many, many people in this newsgroup have taken the time to write to
me with suggestions for improving VueScan in the past. I really
appreciate the many excellent suggestions I've gotten, and these
are the main reason VueScan has improved so much in the past few years.

I'd like to ask for suggestions again, but instead of asking for
suggestions for small changes to VueScan (which are always welcome),
I'd like to ask people to put on their thinking caps and think of
big-picture suggestions.

OK, here's a big one for ya -- how about the ability to "dodge and
burn" like a photo lab might do? That would mean being able to select
exposure values for selected areas of the image in the preview. Many
times I've watched the sky go "white" when I bring up the brightness
to lighten a dark subject. But then, this can be done in higher-end
photo editors, I assume (but not in any I use).

Bryan

 

[Mendel Leisk]

OK, here's a big one for ya -- how about the ability to "dodge and
burn" like a photo lab might do? That would mean being able to select
exposure values for selected areas of the image in the preview. Many
times I've watched the sky go "white" when I bring up the brightness
to lighten a dark subject. But then, this can be done in higher-end
photo editors, I assume (but not in any I use).

Bryan

Sounds like a custom Crop|Buffer. I usually leave this on 0%, but if
I've got a hot spot at edge of frame, will raise the %, say to 15%
default, to exclude the hot bit. I've thought, wouldn't it be nice to
be able to exclude a spot anywhere in the frame, say a lightbulb, or
sun reflection on water, to intentionally blow it out.