[alt-photo] Re: scanner woes

[Ryuji Suzuki]

Vuescan is a good software, but so is Silverfast. These two used to form two 
different schools of film scanning softwares. They have different approaches 
about automation/semiautomation of roll film scanning on flatbeds. But if you 
are scanning 8x10 the difference is probably not big.

I used to use Expression1600 in 1990s. It was a SCSI/USB1.0 scanner at 1600dpi. 
It was best I could get at that time (probably $1600 range) but readable Dmax 
wasn't great, even for negative shooters.

Now most of the film scanners are discontinued, and I think the best option out 
there is Epson flatbed V700 or V750. I was actually surprised these are still 
the current models, since I've had mine for several years by now. These scanners 
come with Silverfast, but that version is a few years old. You have to upgrade 
to the current version to run on Snow Leopard or Lion.

Incidentally, I'm not upgrading to Lion. They added a bunch of useless features 
taht make life difficult, and took away some useful features from Snow Leopard. 
One can still boot Snow Leopard kernel in 64bit mode, and that's what I do. I'm 
not excited about this, because when I upgrade my current hardware, it will be 
pretty hard to install Snow Leopard on a new hardware (it's not as easy as one 
might think).

--
Ryuji Suzuki
"Don't play what's there, play what's not there." (Miles Davis)




Dianna Rust wrote:
> Dear List
>
> I wanted to scan some 8 x 10 negatives to enlarge for printing.   I currently own an Epson Expression 1680.   My old (vintage!) G4 was getting terribly slow, so, after 11 years, I went the whole hog and bought an iMac with Lion.   I had no idea there would be no driver to connect my scanner with Lion (apparently an Apple issue).   I can only get Apple's image capture (very limited), and cannot use any Silverfast software as I have done so in the past.
>
> Epson have advised me to look at Hamricks' VueScan.   Does anyone have any experience with this?
>
> Also, I wonder if I should bite the bullet and buy (painful!) a new flatbed scanner that will work with Lion, and that, maybe, there's some decent software out there (such as Silverfast) that would be compatible too.
>
> I'm not very tech savy, and using a scanner is just one tool to me, but I was enjoying the ability to do so.
>
> Any advice or comments would be very appreciated
>
> Thanks
> Dianna Rust
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