VueScan 8.2.11 and exposure lock

[Pasi Savolainen]

LOL! Mind you, the 'DisplayRaw Scan' feature, annoyingly enabled by
default, comes close as 'visual music' (I genuinely can't see any other
benefit although others may disagree.)

I, for one, disagree. I've seen enough problems with shitty
firewire+usb+chipset:s to appreciate clear visibility of real data being
processed. (and with some settings scanning takes rather long time).

If you've used any microsoft filemanager, you know how frustrating
their 'progress meter' can be, as it is always '15 min' to complete.
*shudder*

I wholeheartedly agree! I get the feeling that Ed Hamrick is not always a
good listener, but it's always a mistake not to listen to your customers.

My guess is that he's now trying to make vuescan capable of handling
first-time users and with that - bundleable with new scanners. Though
benefits for 'power-users' are not exactly clear here, there are some.
He gets more money, probably documentation and samples on scanners, so
no more guessing of interfaces.
One-button-scanning is sometimes very useful, I just not always have
time to tune every image by hand.

 

[rafe bustin]

I've been one of those asking... well.. rather begging for a decent
'curves' tool for years, only to be told that Vuescan is a program meant
for the sole purpose of creating scanned data and that there's plenty of
other software to do the rest.

Indeed. Vuescan has the strangest user-interface I've
ever seen. It's an anachronism, a throwback to some
other age. The lack of a curves tool is inexcusable.
It's like trying to steer a car with a tiller instead
of a steering wheel.


rafe b.
http://www.terrapinphoto.com

 

[Don]

Maybe this is already a reincarnation of the recent double image cropping
bug in a slightly different guise?

Good point! May very well be. This sort of "see-saw" is quite common
with VueScan. For example, take the infamous Minolta stripes. I
remember one time (of many) when it was declared "fixed" only to have
people immediately complain about how *all* scans suddenly got "soft".
So it's always a case of: 6 of one, half a dozen of the other... :-(

I'm getting increasingly nervous.

If I were a VueScan user (fx: shudder... ;o)) I would use the
following strategy: Find one version which appears to work. Then test
it thoroughly to make sure that at least the portions of the program
used are working to your satisfaction (note: this is *not* the same as
actually, really working!). After that I would stick with that
version.

Of course, one always wants new features or improvements. To do that,
I would keep the log of the initial battery of tests (preferably with
images) and repeat them for every new version I were planning to
install, adding more tests to the testing suite to cover the many new
bugs as they appear. I know, it's messy and time consuming...

Of course, any even semi-reputable software manufacturer would do that
themselves before unleashing half-baked alpha versions on the
unsuspecting victims, but that's clearly not the case with VueScan.

LOL

Didn't last long, though... Even though they repeatedly try to pick a
fight they just end up being ignored. Nonetheless, they can still make
their head spectacularly explode all on their own! Very colorful! ;o)

Don.

 

[Don]

Don, your comments aren't helpful.

I'm sorry you feel like that. I don't know how long you've been
reading the group or how much you know about VueScan's history. So, to
view my comments in context, it might be helpful to skim over the
archives first.

It's a demonstrable fact that VueScan is notoriously buggy and
extremely unreliable. The current bug frenzy is a regular occurrence.
Therefore, one should always keep this VueScan's "fragility" in mind.

Sticking to a "working" version is one possibility (see my comment to
John for more details). Also essential is to keep all previous
versions. Again, all that (and more) is available in the archives.

With my scanner the choice is horrible TWAIN Filmget or Vuescan.
Filmget is incapable of scanning dark slides, does color correction at
8 bit precision, auto-sharpens everything and will only batch scan
until you run out of RAM. Vuescan's the only game in town, bugs and
all. You can tell me how awful Vuescan is, but how does that help me?

In many ways. For example, to take VueScan's output with a bolder of
salt, not to be surprised by all the bugs and be always suspicious
given the VueScan's track record (or lack thereof, to be more
accurate).

I don't have a FS4000 but have you considered scanning raw with your
original software (just turn everything off and use maximum resolution
and bit depth) and then do the editing in a proper image editor
afterwards? Namely, regardless of the scanner software, any editing is
always better done in a dedicated image editor after the scan. Not
only do you get a full set of tools but you can blow up the image,
analyze it, inspect histograms, etc.

As to dark slides, I've been pulling my hair with dark Kodachromes for
years (again, see the archives). One program I recently discovered and
which you may want to try is HDR Shop (Version 1 is free). See my
recent messages for more details. This will let you extend dynamic
range and penetrate those dark shadows without burning out the
highlights. You may also want to check my "Twin scan" message.

Write a better scanning program for the FS4000 and I'll try it.

That's not my job, but after literally years of frustration that's
exactly what I ended up doing for my Nikon LS-50!

Don.

 

[Don]

I suspect that Ed Hamrick now has his eyes on a diferent market, so I doubt
that there will be any significant improvements to Vuescan for users who are
primarily interested in scanning film, e.g. the likes of infra-red cleaning.
Of course, I could be wrong .....

No, I think you're right.

Furthermore, it appears to me (and I may be wrong too...) but the
scanning "fad" seems to be waning. In other words, most people who
wanted to scan their analog film library have already done so. And
since most of them have then migrated to digital cameras they don't
have much use for film scanning after that. The same goes for
documents, which are also almost exclusively in digital format these
days. So once old photos, letters, etc. are all scanned the flatbed is
not used as extensively either, although (unlike film scanners) it
does come in handy from time to time. On the other hand, I've used my
digital camera in macro mode as a "document scanner" many times while
on the road.

Of course, there's still the hardcore professional group but that's a
narrow specialty market with very tough quality requirements and they
certainly wouldn't touch VueScan with a 10-foot pole...

Don.

 

[Roger]

Hi Don,
I've been reading the group since I bought the scanner last summer and
read the archives extensively to figure out how to get the most out of
it. I've found Bart and Erik's postings very helpful as are the posts
you have made about maximizing scan quality and about HDR (the ones you
make criticizing Vuescan are simply repetitive, as if you had a
vendetta against a piece of software you don't even use).

Vuescan's flaws are very obvious to anyone who does a reasonable
quantity of scanning, so your comments are just an extreme version of
what I already know. The last version before 8.2.01 was stable and I
will switch back to it as I'm tired of the preview rotation bug.
Vuescan's poor IR cleaning eats away at the edges of my slides, but a
scanhancer keeps that in check.

Scanning straight with Filmget means that dense slides (Provia at
night, etc) will be incorrectly exposed and have almost no midtone or
shadow detail. I shoot a lot of chromes at night so this is important
to me.

I'm not impressed with the color balance of negatives in filmget and
get much better results using Vuescan's advanced work flow and shooting
grey/white cards as Erik taught me. This way I can basically see what
I shot and not have to waste as much time correcting colors in
Photoshop.
So Vuescan's not perfect but it gets the job done better than the
alternatives as my testing has shown.

I wish Ed would have stable release candidates and then experimental
beta versions instead of making every version a beta. Even freeware
developers do this. He could even have beta testers test new versions
on different scanners to catch bugs before I do. It's really unheard
of to foist this off on the end users- I have emailed him maybe 5 times
about bugs and almost never for any other piece of software- freeware
or not.

 

[Greg Campbell]

With my scanner the choice is horrible TWAIN Filmget or Vuescan.
Filmget is incapable of scanning dark slides, does color correction at
8 bit precision, auto-sharpens everything and will only batch scan
until you run out of RAM. Vuescan's the only game in town, bugs and
all. You can tell me how awful Vuescan is, but how does that help me?
Write a better scanning program for the FS4000 and I'll try it.

Here's a batching program that writes the scans to disk as it goes.
(Still uses Filmget as the driver.)
http://www.goof.com/~mmead/TwainTiffBatcher/

A freeware, 3rd party, DRIVER/gui that seems to work well, but has a
'rather' steep learning curve.
http://www.xs4all.nl/~mhwb/index.html?manual/fs4000us_main.html


Regarding Filmget and dark slides, have you played with the 'Settings' >
'Monitor Gamma' values? This seems to raise the low level sensitivity a
bit, althought the thermal/electronic noise floor lurks close by. Hello
Neatimage!

FWIW, I get the 'best' Filmget results by turning off color matching and
auto exposure, and tweaking that gamma setting. The resultant scan
seems closest to a raw in terms of recording most of the information
produced by the hardware. I then load a few custom curve adjustments
(threshold and gamma) to roughly compensate for the Magenta Monster
attack.

-Greg

 

[Steven]

Here's a batching program that writes the scans to disk as it goes.
(Still uses Filmget as the driver.)
http://www.goof.com/~mmead/TwainTiffBatcher/

Thanks for the link. It certainly does make Filmget a much more usable
program.

-- Steven

 

[Don]

Hi Roger,

I've been reading the group since I bought the scanner last summer and
read the archives extensively to figure out how to get the most out of
it. I've found Bart and Erik's postings very helpful as are the posts
you have made about maximizing scan quality and about HDR

Don't forget Kennedy! He's the true gem in this group!!!

(the ones you
make criticizing Vuescan are simply repetitive

I'm not really criticizing VueScan, just stating objective facts. If
that's repetitive, it's only because VueScan bugs keep recurring.

Reading reports of VueScan bugs (usually by VueScan users themselves!)
may be repetitive to a long time reader (it sure is to me) but it's
certainly news to someone who has joined and seeking advice.

Namely, there have been "repeated" instances of angry VueScan victims
demanding their money back (in vain!). So warning new users in advance
of a software's pitfalls is the whole point of a group like this so
they can make educated choices. (Note that I said "a software", not
VueScan!)

, as if you had a
vendetta against a piece of software you don't even use).

As is clear from both the above and the archives I don't have a
vendetta. I've criticized NikonScan just as much. How come nobody
accuses me of having a vendetta against it?

The answer is because some VueScan users have a huge chip on their
shoulder which makes them very touchy - probably because they
themselves are so frustrated by the never ending flood of VueScan
bugs. So they just lash out at anyone reminding them of that fact.

The mythical "vendetta" is just a mud-slinging fallacy, with no basis
in fact, spread by the very same (rabid) VueScan users (not to be
confused with calm and reasonable VueScan users!!).

Vuescan's flaws are very obvious to anyone who does a reasonable
quantity of scanning, so your comments are just an extreme version of
what I already know.

That's exactly the point! *You* know that, I know that, but someone
just joining in does not. Secondly, you can give people advice but (as
in the case of VueScan users) if they keep coming back with the same
problems (bugs) - over and over again - don't you think it's fair to
not only wonder about the futility but to point that out?

The bottom line is that if VueScan did not have all these bugs there
would be no discussion. So the blame is clearly with VueScan, *not*
people daring to point out its shortcomings (many of which people are
the exasperated VueScan users themselves!).

Scanning straight with Filmget means that dense slides (Provia at
night, etc) will be incorrectly exposed and have almost no midtone or
shadow detail. I shoot a lot of chromes at night so this is important
to me.

I have exactly the same problem with Kodachromes on my Nikon. Which is
what I've been agonizing over the last two years. I've lost count of
the number of "false starts" I had. But by the time I would reach box
10 of my slides I'd just have to throw my hands in the air and look
for another approach. In my case it's the noise in the dark areas that
drives me up the wall.

So Vuescan's not perfect but it gets the job done better than the
alternatives as my testing has shown.

And that's perfectly fine. As a long time reader you will no doubt
know that I have never tried to "convince" anyone happy with VueScan
to do anything else. On the contrary, I always say: If it works for
you, enjoy!

But when VueScan users keep complaining about the same things (bugs)
over and over again, then it's only fair to point out that maybe they
need to try something else. And that does *not* always mean move away
from VueScan, but stick with a particular version, or try a different
workflow, or whatever... In any case, don't shoot the messenger!

I wish Ed would have stable release candidates and then experimental
beta versions instead of making every version a beta. Even freeware
developers do this. He could even have beta testers test new versions
on different scanners to catch bugs before I do. It's really unheard
of to foist this off on the end users- I have emailed him maybe 5 times
about bugs and almost never for any other piece of software- freeware
or not.

Exactly! I've said precisely the same thing! Very well put.

I guess that also makes you a "VueScan basher" with a "vendetta". ;o)

Don.