Vuescan and lock exposure

[Robert Feinman]

I've done some further testing with the newest version (8.3.45)
of Vuescan and I *think* I've come up with a procedure to
lock exposures between frames.

1. Select the single frame which will be the basis for the
series.
2. Set batch off and preview, lock exposure, preview, lock
film base, lock color and tweak clipping if necessary.
3. Turn on batch and select frames to be scanned.
4. Do final scans of series.

Changing any parameters while in batch mode only affects
the individual frame being worked on which sort of makes
the lock options meaningless.

I've written to Ed Hamrick and suggested he needs a new
option such as batch-lock to emulate the old behavior.
I haven't gotten a reply, but he is usually quite good at
incorporating new ideas.

If you do much batch scanning the instantaneous previews
and rotations may be of some value to you. Note that he
has also revised the serial numbers so those with pirated
versions won't be able to upgrade.

I have Don in my killfile so I can only infer that he is
being his usual paranoid self. I guess it is a case of
"no good deed goes unpunished".

 

[Randy Howard]

Robert Feinman wrote

I've done some further testing with the newest version (8.3.45)
of Vuescan and I *think* I've come up with a procedure to
lock exposures between frames.

All these posts about bugs and workarounds with Vuescan seem to
be reinforcing the comments that Don has been making. Ironic,
that.

I've written to Ed Hamrick and suggested he needs a new
option such as batch-lock to emulate the old behavior.
I haven't gotten a reply, but he is usually quite good at
incorporating new ideas.

I asked him some questions about the product a while back
(several weeks). I'm still waiting for a response.

 

[Evo2Me]

All these posts about bugs and workarounds with Vuescan seem to
be reinforcing the comments that Don has been making. Ironic,
that.

See, and this is why it is not enough to just killfile trolls
(although I've done so with several), they spread the word, people
start believing it. Whenever non-initiates now happen upon a critical
assessment or a problem, it "reinforces" don's position.

Which ends in those of us having a sensible question or finding a
solution sub-optimal and asking others to discuss, simply leaving it.
What relevance do Don's ramblings built upon experiences years ago
have on a very recent development?

While I find it very useful and long overdue to have the possibility
to change settings individually for every picture when scanning a film
strip, Robert uses the Lock feature, which goes completely counter to
the new behaviour. No bug involved, no problematic development, only
different work-flows and interpretations.

Luckily some developers, like Ed Hamrick or Mike Chaney, listen to
customers and try to accommodate us as fast as possible - if possible.

 

[Randy Howard]

Evo2Me wrote

See, and this is why it is not enough to just killfile trolls
(although I've done so with several), they spread the word, people
start believing it. Whenever non-initiates now happen upon a critical
assessment or a problem, it "reinforces" don's position.

Which ends in those of us having a sensible question or finding a
solution sub-optimal and asking others to discuss, simply leaving it.
What relevance do Don's ramblings built upon experiences years ago
have on a very recent development?

I don't know anything about Don's motivations. I know he was
helpful with some questions I had, which I am thankful for. I
also know that having tried to contact Hamrick for support, it's
a hit or miss deal. His software and website encourage you to
ask for support if you using the eval copy, so it's not about
not having paid for it yet. It's simply that he can't keep up,
or picks and chooses which he answers by some opaque to me
method.

That, combined with the fact that I get a crash report every
time I exit the program unless I didn't do any scanning at all
while in it does not inspire confidence.

The UI is horribly laid out. Even a fan of VueScan would have
to admit that. It takes tons of clicking back and forth between
panels to figure out what settings do what, and a change 'here'
can impact things 'over there'.

It is however better than the swill software that shipped with
my Canon 9950F, so I am between a rock and a hard place.

My impression is that it is not by any means great software, but
it's better than my current alternative.

While I find it very useful and long overdue to have the possibility
to change settings individually for every picture when scanning a film
strip, Robert uses the Lock feature, which goes completely counter to
the new behaviour. No bug involved, no problematic development, only
different work-flows and interpretations.

Luckily some developers, like Ed Hamrick or Mike Chaney, listen to
customers and try to accommodate us as fast as possible - if possible.

I would love to believe that, but my own experience says that
one of the above (I do not know who Mike Chaney is or what
product he represents) doesn't listen to potential customers
very well. It's frustrating.

 

[Robert Feinman]

Robert Feinman wrote


All these posts about bugs and workarounds with Vuescan seem to
be reinforcing the comments that Don has been making. Ironic,
that.


I asked him some questions about the product a while back
(several weeks). I'm still waiting for a response.

I'm just a simple user of Vuescan, so I have no vested interest in
the product. I think it is useful to discuss the good and bad
features in a forum as a way to share information. I do think that
Ed Hamrick is sometimes a little hasty in releasing a new version,
but with hundreds of models to support it seems impractical for him
to test extensively.

As to whether his software is buggier than others, one only has to
look at how frequently Microsoft releases patches to see that his
performance isn't so bad. Also his policy of not charging for
improvements is fairly generous. Compare to Photoshop where the bugs
of one version are fixed in the next for an upgrade fee of about $200
each time.

Vuescan is still the biggest bargain in scanner software, but it is
up to each user to determine if they can live with the quirks. For
those who can't then I suggest Silverfast. It has quirks of its own,
also releases patches frequently, but allows for more adjustments
and better batch job speed. I assume the new features in Vuescan
are an attempt to try to compete with the batch feature in Silverfast.

In my experience Ed replies to emails when there is something useful
to be discussed. For questions about how to use the software people
should read the documentation (especially some of the third party
guides) and/or ask questions in forums such as this. It seems a waste
of time to continually discuss the vendor rather than the product.

I don't see threads bad mouthing the designers of the continual stream
of poorly thought out digital cameras that were released over the past
decade.

Since I posted the original announcement on the new features there have
been two newer versions. How recently has your version of Internet
Explorer been updated?

 

[Roger S.]

In my experience Ed replies to emails when there is something useful

to be discussed. For questions about how to use the software people
should read the documentation (especially some of the third party
guides) and/or ask questions in forums such as this.

To be fair to Ed, he doesn't always respond to my emails requesting
fixes in Vuescan, but seems to have some sort of priority fixes list he
works from. I get responses a month or so later with a version that's
supposed to fix the problem I'd been having (and generally does), and a
request to test it and let him know if it works.

 

[Don]

All these posts about bugs and workarounds with Vuescan seem to
be reinforcing the comments that Don has been making. Ironic,
that.

It's a familiar pattern which keeps repeating but some people prefer
to close their eyes and just shoot the messenger. Indeed, the more
frustrated some VueScan "fans" seem to be the more rabidly they seem
to attack anyone justifiably criticizing it. Whatever...

I asked him some questions about the product a while back
(several weeks). I'm still waiting for a response.

Apparently one has to jump through all sorts of hoops when writing and
must submit a question "just so". If you haven't done that, don't
expect an answer.

Also, people have said make sure you ask for an acknowledgment.
Sometimes that helps. But even then, judging by other posts he only
seems to respond to a few (of his favorite) selected people.

Indeed, he even "blacklisted" some paid-up users because they dared to
complain in public about the never ending avalanche of VueScan bugs.
To others he petulantly wrote "if you don't like it don't use it" but
only after he pocketed the money, of course. No refunds. :-/

Don.

 

[Henk de Jong]

Please ignore Don: he is a troll...

With kind regards,
Henk de Jong

 

[Randy Howard]

Robert Feinman wrote

I'm just a simple user of Vuescan, so I have no vested interest in
the product. I think it is useful to discuss the good and bad
features in a forum as a way to share information.

I agree completely.

I do think that
Ed Hamrick is sometimes a little hasty in releasing a new version,
but with hundreds of models to support it seems impractical for him
to test extensively.

If you offer a commercial product, it seems proper (practical or
not) to either test the product properly, reduce the features to
a level you can test the product properly, or to hire internal
or external test help to achieve a commercial grade of product
quality. This isn't GPL code, the bar is higher.

As to whether his software is buggier than others, one only has to
look at how frequently Microsoft releases patches to see that his
performance isn't so bad.

Although it is always fun to sling arrows at Microsoft,
comparing something like Vuescan to an operating system is
completely inappropriate. They aren't within half a dozen
orders of magnitude of each other in complexity.

Also his policy of not charging for
improvements is fairly generous. Compare to Photoshop where the bugs
of one version are fixed in the next for an upgrade fee of about $200
each time.

Actually, I get free updates periodically through the built-in
update mechanism in photoshop. Major upgrades for money
typically involve substantial new functionality, along with
perhaps a few bug fixes. Let's not pretend for example that the
difference between CS and CS2 was nothing but bug fixes.

Vuescan is still the biggest bargain in scanner software, but it is
up to each user to determine if they can live with the quirks. For
those who can't then I suggest Silverfast.

I tried Silverfast, and it won't even talk to my scanner. I
could of course spend hours or days on the phone with them, but
I have better things to do...

In my experience Ed replies to emails when there is something useful
to be discussed. For questions about how to use the software people
should read the documentation (especially some of the third party
guides) and/or ask questions in forums such as this. It seems a waste
of time to continually discuss the vendor rather than the product.

My question was specific to a problem with a bug in the image
resulting from a test scan with a specific image and specific
configuration settings. I sent full details, including version,
settings and an image sample showing the problem exactly. Never
got a response. YMMV.

I don't see threads bad mouthing the designers of the continual stream
of poorly thought out digital cameras that were released over the past
decade.

I fail to see the relevance of discussing out of date digital
cameras in a scanner forum, but if you must...

Since I posted the original announcement on the new features there have
been two newer versions. How recently has your version of Internet
Explorer been updated?

I don't run IE, it's crap. I have tendency not to run broken
software, which is why I am interested in this particular
thread.

 

[Randy Howard]

Henk de Jong wrote

Please ignore Don: he is a troll...

Please don't act as if you are some self-appointed censor. I'll
decide for myself who I will ignore and who I will not ignore.

 

[Henk de Jong]

Henk de Jong wrote


Please don't act as if you are some self-appointed censor. I'll
decide for myself who I will ignore and who I will not ignore.

It is a good UseNet behaviour "not to feed the trolls..."


With kind regards,
Henk de Jong

 

[Evo2Me]

It is a good UseNet behaviour "not to feed the trolls..."

Unfortunately that only works with obviously non-related postings -
typical troll fare that is.

Not only does Don not seem to be the typical troll - is he is one at
all (and, no, Wikipedia is not definitive in any meaningful sense of
the word) - his Vuescan/Hamrick attacks lead the uninitiated into not
testing a rather well made program. And they lead people to refrain
from asking questions about VS or reporting specific problems here
because they are afraid of it leading others to believe Don's right
about the "crappy nature" of VS.

Yes, sometimes one has to stand up, balance one-sided views and show
one's own colours. The more so with posters coming over as
knowledgeable.

 

[David J. Littleboy]

Not only does Don not seem to be the typical troll - is he is one at
all (and, no, Wikipedia is not definitive in any meaningful sense of
the word) - his Vuescan/Hamrick attacks lead the uninitiated into not
testing a rather well made program. And they lead people to refrain
from asking questions about VS or reporting specific problems here
because they are afraid of it leading others to believe Don's right
about the "crappy nature" of VS.

By the way, Don's going to be _real_ unhappy in the very near future.
Vuescan's design means that it will work fine with all 500 of the scanners
it supports on the upcoming 64-bit operating systems.

Even though almost none of those scanners will have mfr-supplied 64-bit
drivers or software.

David J. Littleboy
(e-mail address removed)
Tokyo, Japan

 

[Don]

his Vuescan/Hamrick attacks lead the uninitiated into not
testing a rather well made program.

OK, that's the rant. And now the *facts*:

--- start ---

Looking is free, BTW. You can download a watermarked version and try
it out for yourself at www.hamrick.com.

You can try
it for free (www.hamrick.com) but I believe it will watermark you
scans.

Free to try, though, although critical features
are disabled:

http://www.hamrick.com

Etc... etc... etc...
--- end ---

Now, what were you saying?

Oh, I almost forgot:

--- start ---

What you and the VueScan devotees are missing is that I actually think
VueScan (at its core) is a really neat hack! (Hack in the positive
sense, of course.) Its low level access to scanners bypassing TWAIN is
actually (conceptually) very close to my heart (deep down inside I'm
an assembler programmer).

--- end ---

So, you were saying...?

Don.

 

[Randy Howard]

David J. Littleboy wrote

By the way, Don's going to be _real_ unhappy in the very near future.
Vuescan's design means that it will work fine with all 500 of the scanners
it supports on the upcoming 64-bit operating systems.

Upcoming? I've been running 64-bit operating systems for years.

 

[Randy Howard]

Randy Howard wrote

Robert Feinman wrote


All these posts about bugs and workarounds with Vuescan seem to
be reinforcing the comments that Don has been making. Ironic,
that.


I asked him some questions about the product a while back
(several weeks). I'm still waiting for a response.

I don't know if it because of these postings or not, but I just
received a response to a support question I asked on May 8th.
The suggestion being to try the issue I was reporting again with
a new version.

Since I've already filed away the slide I was having trouble
with at the time having scanned it with something else, it's not
likely to help me now almost a month later. But, thought I
would mention this 'excellent support' in the interest of
fairness.

 

[Don]

Apparently one has to jump through all sorts of hoops when writing and
must submit a question "just so". If you haven't done that, don't
expect an answer.

Yes, the author of VueScan is very unreasonable. He expects people
to mention what version of VueScan they're using, what operating system
they're using, and to give a procedure for duplicating the problem.

He's really a tyrant!

When I release DonnyScan, I'm going to hire psychics for my technical
support department, so people won't have to be inconvenienced so much.

Don

 

[Roger S.]

He's really a tyrant!

When I release DonnyScan, I'm going to hire psychics for my technical
support department, so people won't have to be inconvenienced so much.

Don

You seem to be a bit beligerent today. Usually you stick to
criticizing the program itself, but in your posts today you're
targeting other people.