Is it a fond farewell to VueScan?

[Andy Hewitt]

I just bought a new Epson CX3200. I was only actually needing a new
printer, but ended up with this. Operated on my iMac 400 with 576MB RAM,
and OS 10.3.2.

I'm not dissapointed either, it prints great pictures, and scans very
well indeed - far, far better than my old Umax 3400.

Now I used VueScan for the 3400, and it worked great. I tried it with
the Epson, and despite Ed's remarks on the web site that multi-function
units aren't supported, it does actually work.

I did a comparison with it against the EpsonScan software, to see what
differences there are. Indeed the EpsonScan software is pretty good,
possibly a little faster than VueScan.

However, I did a back to back test scan, using the same photo, and
leaving each app to default settings, and saved as jpg. The VueScan
image was might lighter, and the colours washed out. I tried again with
colour and fade restore enabled, but still the Epson scan is better.

I even tried it at 600dpi, and as TIFF files, all the same.

Any ideas here?

Cheers.

 

[Bart van der Wolf]

SNIP

However, I did a back to back test scan, using the same photo, and
leaving each app to default settings, and saved as jpg. The VueScan
image was might lighter, and the colours washed out. I tried again with
colour and fade restore enabled, but still the Epson scan is better.

I even tried it at 600dpi, and as TIFF files, all the same.

For my taste, the default White point setting of 1% is too agressive for
continuous tone images. Turn it down (% varies per image) till the
highlights are less clipped. Then use the brightness to get a more pleasing
look (also varies per image).

Bart

 

[Andy Hewitt]

SNIP

For my taste, the default White point setting of 1% is too agressive for
continuous tone images. Turn it down (% varies per image) till the
highlights are less clipped. Then use the brightness to get a more pleasing
look (also varies per image).

I did try it with the white balance off altogether, but still the Epson
image quality is more pleasing. Oh well.

Not only that, EpsonScan also allows me to scan multiple images at once
(so I have just discovered!).

Cheers.

 

[David R]

Vuescan allows for multi image scanning as well. See link below for
directions on that subject.
http://www.hamrick.com/vuescan/html/vuesc3.htm#topic2

 

[Andy Hewitt]

Vuescan allows for multi image scanning as well. See link below for
directions on that subject.
http://www.hamrick.com/vuescan/html/vuesc3.htm#topic2

I see, cheers. However, it looks like a fixed grid. EpsonScan allows you
to batch scan separately, so I can scan different sized, and different
orientation images. I may well mess around with VueScan a bit more
though, but I have to say that the Epson software is bloody good.

 

[David R]

I agree with you that Epson software is very good for the average user
and those who want to do batch scanning. I have said this in many of
my past comments. Yes Epson is a bit faster than Vuescan.
I think however there is a place for Vuescan still. It offers a lot
of options to play arround with. I think that the more a person
learns about these things the better he/she will like Vuescan.
Also some scanners do not come with outstanding software.

 

[Andy Hewitt]

I agree with you that Epson software is very good for the average user
and those who want to do batch scanning. I have said this in many of
my past comments. Yes Epson is a bit faster than Vuescan.
I think however there is a place for Vuescan still. It offers a lot
of options to play arround with. I think that the more a person
learns about these things the better he/she will like Vuescan.
Also some scanners do not come with outstanding software.

Absolutely, the VistaScan software with the Umax scanners is pants. The
two versions I had just didn't work properly. The earlier one didn't
work with VM enabled on the Mac OS9, and the later version wouldn't scan
properly, and created fogged images.

I may well still play around with VueScan, I like it a lot, but it's
being hard to get the right settings at ther moment.

Cheers.

 

[David R]

Jump into the manual and take a look at www.scantips.com

 

[Andy Hewitt]

Jump into the manual and take a look at www.scantips.com

Yes, I had a look there, but doesn't seem to cover my specific problem.

Cheers.

 

[Jim]

|
| > I agree with you that Epson software is very good for the average
| > user and those who want to do batch scanning. I have said this in
| > many of my past comments. Yes Epson is a bit faster than Vuescan. I
| > think however there is a place for Vuescan still. It offers a lot
| > of options to play arround with. I think that the more a person
| > learns about these things the better he/she will like Vuescan. Also
| > some scanners do not come with outstanding software.
|
| Absolutely, the VistaScan software with the Umax scanners is pants.
| The two versions I had just didn't work properly. The earlier one
| didn't work with VM enabled on the Mac OS9, and the later version
| wouldn't scan properly, and created fogged images.
|
| I may well still play around with VueScan, I like it a lot, but it's
| being hard to get the right settings at ther moment.

You're lucky... for me, VueScan runs circles around the Epson software...
mainly because only 1 out of 25 launches of Epson Scan recognizes the
scanner. VueScan finds and initializes it right away.

Mac TiBook w/10.2.8 and Espson Scan 128A... Jim

 

[Walter Plinge]

I just bought a new Epson CX3200. I was only actually needing a new
printer, but ended up with this. Operated on my iMac 400 with 576MB RAM,
and OS 10.3.2.

I'm not dissapointed either, it prints great pictures, and scans very
well indeed - far, far better than my old Umax 3400.

I find Epson scan software supplied with the 3170 to be very good. Only a
couple of small niggles - occasionally it fails to intepret the negative
properly and won't produce thumbnails, and it mis-interprets colour
correction with the subect is shot in warm, evening-type light and has a
natural reddish tinge anway -- it make it too blue. In that case Photoshop
auto correction does a better job.

 

[David C Miers]

Vuescan's learning curve is higher then many of the other software packages
included with the various scanners and I have to say epson is quite good.
While I have no experience with your particular scanner I dare say as long
as the vuescan software works correctly with your scanner you will find some
images that vuescan will depants even the epson software. You have to learn
to work the black point, whitepoint and brightness all together to get where
you want to go. I usually leave the final color adjustments to photoshop
though. The ability to set the white and black points all the way down to 0
and up to 11 I believe it is, is invaluable. You can easily adjust the
levels up from there, but it's much harder to get a good image with lesser
levels then you already have. I'm not sure I said that right, but hoping
you grasp what I'm referring to.

 

[BCampbell]

The software (Newcolor 5000) that came with my scanner never worked properly
with my computer. About once out of every three times the scanner would hang
up part way through the final scan. That hasn't happened since I installed
Vuescan.

 

[ExTex]

I found your comments re various scanner software packages and wonder if you
might be able to assist me in a similar but slightly different situation.
My scanner is a Umax Astra 1200S, which I purchased in 1998 with
Vistascan2.43 and PageManager 2.30. I used it with success until recently
when I "lost" the window on the left of the screen containing a tree of
items scanned. Whatever happened must of in some way been my inadvertent
doing, but I have not figured it out nor has anyone else including Umas
support. Meantime, I bought Umax VistaScan 3.55 and have very limited
success in installing it, let alone using it.

I have consided getting a new scanner with bundled compatible software, but
I don't use a scanner enough to be too picky about it. Using PaintShop Pro
6 I can still scan a document and email it, but cannot use OCR or PageType.
If you have a suggestion, I will be most grateful.

Thanks.

Howard DeMere
(e-mail address removed)
----- Original Message -----
From: "BCampbell" <[email protected]>
Newsgroups: comp.periphs.scanners
Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2004 7:13 AM
Subject: Re: Is it a fond farewell to VueScan?