Nikon Coolscan IV software

[Cedders]

I've just bought an ED IV Coolscan off Ebay. It came with Nikon Scan 3
(3.0.0) software. From everything I've read here Vuescan is the way to go.
Do I need to install NikonScan3 first? Do I need any drivers at all ?
(running WinXP) I've read that Vuescan doesn't use the Twain drivers so is
there anything on the Nikon disc I need?

I see there's a NikonScan v.4 out on their website (not available on the
European but only on USA). Although principally for the ED V and upwards it
says it works on the ED IV. Is this a worthwhile upgrade? Not applicable if
I use Vuescan off course.

Thanks in anticipation

Cedric

 

[degrub]

Make sure you have loaded the latest ASPI scsi drivers per Ed's
instructions and then use Vuescan.

Frank

 

[Kennedy McEwen]

I see there's a NikonScan v.4 out on their website (not available on the
European but only on USA). Although principally for the ED V and upwards it
says it works on the ED IV.

Nikonscan 4 certainly is available on the European site - including the
upgrade to version 4.02. From the European site, select "Technical
Support & FAQ's" then select Scanners and Coolscan IV LS-40ED and you
should see all the options available for the scanner, including a
firmware upgrade which you might need.

Is this a worthwhile upgrade?

Depends on your point of view. It fixes a few problems but I found NS-4
slower to scan than NS-3.1.2 on my LS-4000 - although this has been
fixed on NS-4.02.

However, one annoying bug that I have found and reported using 4.02 is
that it will consistently crash if you insert negative film in the
LS-4000 when it is set to expect positives or vice versa. I don't know
if this is the same for other supported scanners though. If used stand
alone this is bad enough, but if used to scan to Photoshop via TWAIN, it
locks the machine completely and anything you are doing in Photoshop at
the time will be lost.

Nikon UK have confirmed this is a bug, so it should be resolved in the
next update, but by all means report it yourself - the more folk
complain the quicker it will be addressed.

Overall, I would stick with NS-3.1.2 until this major issue is resolved
by Nikon.

 

[Charlie]

Make sure you have loaded the latest ASPI scsi drivers per Ed's
instructions and then use Vuescan.

Frank

ASPI scsi? Isn't the ED IV Coolscan a USB scanner?



Charlie Hoffpauir
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~charlieh/

 

[Cedders]

Yep its USB. So back to the original question, do I go with Vuescan or load
up Nikon Scan - and do I need to install NS anyway before I can use Vuescan?

Thanks

Cedric

 

[Ed Hamrick]

I've just bought an ED IV Coolscan off Ebay. It came with Nikon Scan 3
(3.0.0) software. From everything I've read here Vuescan is the way to go.
Do I need to install NikonScan3 first? Do I need any drivers at all ?
(running WinXP) I've read that Vuescan doesn't use the Twain drivers so is
there anything on the Nikon disc I need?

If you're using Mac OS X, you don't need to install any
Nikon software. If you're using Windows, you need to install
NikonScan - Windows needs the .INF file that comes with NikonScan.

You only need ASPI on Windows if you're using some kinds of
older SCSI scanners.

Regards,
Ed Hamrick

 

[Charlie]

Yep its USB. So back to the original question, do I go with Vuescan or load
up Nikon Scan - and do I need to install NS anyway before I can use Vuescan?

Thanks

Cedric

Go with Vuescan.... you don't need to install Nikonscan, or anything
else if you have a WinXP system. If you have a Mac or Linix, check the
Vuescan website for information, as I'm not familiar with requirements
for those systems.

Charlie Hoffpauir
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~charlieh/

 

[Daniel Masse]

Yep its USB. So back to the original question, do I go with Vuescan
or load up Nikon Scan - and do I need to install NS anyway before I
can use Vuescan?

I too purchased a Nikon IV recently, and I installed both Nikon Scan and
Vuescan : they live together very happily. The results are not quite
identical, but I need to make more tests to decide which is best. Some even
recommend scanning with NS, and re-scanning the file with Vuescan...

Vuescan is noticeably faster, and runs independantly : you may work on your
images in PS while scanning, which is nice.

 

[Kennedy McEwen]

Vuescan is noticeably faster, and runs independantly : you may work on your
images in PS while scanning, which is nice.

You can do this with NikonScan too - the stand alone version is
completely independent of Photoshop and can, for example, be set to
batch scan a film whilst the first images are edited in Photoshop.

Having said that, with both Vuescan and NikonScan, most of the time to
acquire each image is post processing rather than physical scan time, so
editing other images in Photoshop significantly slows both processes.