Silverfast Or Vuescan

[Consuelo Dular]

Firstoff I want to make clear that I'm certainly no expert, there are a lot of technical stuff I know jack about, This is made purely from a personal perspective. But feel free to add a comment below, with your own experience or advice on what I could do better.

I started out spending some time finding the right settings in both pieces of software, I haven't included that here. And this part is of course a matter of individual taste, you may prefer other settings then what I used.

That shouldn't prolong the scanning time, unless you add more features, like noise reduction or multi scan, which I don't use.

Silverfast, was another thing, I only used it a couple of times before, and since I started using NLP, I stopped using it at all. I quickly found out that in order to use the infrared cleaning feature, I could only save the image file in Tiff format, if I wanted to save as an DNG, I wasn't able to use the infrared feature, don't ask me why, it doesn't make any sense to me.

After a bit more testing I found out that the settings I preferred were Preset 300 dpi (photo quality), resolution 3600ppi, iSRD (IR) on automatic and then save as a Tiff file.

First we have the direct conversion from the DNG file (Vuescan) and the Tiff file (Silverfast), I'm actually amazed by how much they look alike, there really isn't that much of a difference. There is a bit more saturation in the Tiff file, and it's a bit more magenta, but that's really it.

In this case here, I like the end result from both pieces of software. Like I wrote earlier, they look almost the same.

But I have done a few more scans, to compare the results, and I might just like the Silverfast a bit better than Vuescan's, they tend to be a little warmer (more green) than Vuescan's scans, which are more cold (and magenta), but we are really talking minor details here, and again it all comes down to personal taste.

Thanks for the article, I am going through the same tests with the same set-up (8200i with Silverfast and VueScan). I am curious what you are using as your output profile in silverfast when exporting to TIFF? I have tried untagged, Prophoto, AdobeRGB all with various results. To my eye, I think the Silverfast 16 bit tiff iSRD with no embedded profile offers more pleasing results then the DNG from silverfast. I do not use the TIFF utility within NLP and do not use the white balance dropper off of the film base. Sometimes, I will crop very tight into the image for my conversion, perform the conversion then remove the crop in LR. I also use ME with both TIFF and DNG, not sure how much of a difference it truly makes, but I feel that when I pixel peep, I see better nose reduction and transitions within the image vs non ME scans. My issue though, in most cases is that my scanned image is usually very warm/orange. I am able to balance in NLP, but there still seems to be strange colors in skintones. This happens whether I WB or not.

As for VueScan, that is somewhat new to me and I just purchased a license about a week ago. I like the idea of maintaining a DNG really prefer the iSRD application. I have been working on comparing DNG with IR scanned files to what I get from VueScan to what I get out of Silverfast TIFF. So far, the jury is still out and I have yet to dial in my settings that I feel offer optimal results.

Hi,

I have been using a canon 8800F quite happily for a few months. Last week, I realized vuescan handled the colors of negatives way better than the canon software and quickly purchased it.

However, I then saw that I often get annoying scan lines with vuescan, where I would not get any with the canon program (I also tried a demo version of silverfast which also gave no such artefact).

I do not have time to sort out samples for posting, but can try to do it later.

I do not know whether this comes from incorrect settings from my part. Has anybody encountered this problem ?

Also, the canon software allows me to hand set the backlight intensity, and I can't find the corresponding setting on vuescan. I wonder whether it is possible or not, whether it is set automatically, or always left at default value.

I guess I should write to the vuescan author, but if anybody has some information, I would be very grateful.

Thanks !

4:11AM, 24 August 2009 PDT(permalink)

Lines in the scan are generally caused by dust in the caliibration area. Clean the scanner bed thoroughly and you have no lines. No idea about the backlight setting but I'm sure it's there somewhere (my scanner doesn't support it so I have no idea)

ages ago(permalink)

So, after an obscene amount of time, I more or less solved the problem. The lines like patterns came partly from dust, but mainly from the jpeg conversion of vuescan. At least with the scanner cleaned, the lines are so diffuse in the raw files that they are no disturbance. When converted by aperture or adobe (or canonscan or silverfast) they do not really appear. But vuescan's routine however, they become really annoying.

So I will avoid the jpg output of vuescan from now on.

On the other hand, this has made me discover about all the features of vuescan :)

ages ago(permalink)

i'm afraid that jpeg isn't the problem, since i'm using tiff exif and geting strange lines in scan.

i suspect that it is caused by vibration in the table, since when the scanner was in a shelve I never see any of this lines. Now it is in the same table with the keyboard.

ages ago(permalink)

@ Pureum. Yes it sure will! This article is applicable for most scanners. Variations will be based on tray holder size and layout, manual focus, multi-exposure and ICE, which is entirely dependant on scanner hardware.

@Johan, thanks for the nice guide. I just bought the 5400 for little money and now I wonder if I need a specific Silverfast software? Is SE 8.8 sufficient or do I need something more fancy? Se Plus? AI Studio? Cheers, Jaroslaw

@Michael. Thanks for the anecdote! I too can confirm that Silverfast is very RAM heavy. When I edit and scan on my 16GB Macbook Pro it dies. When doing the same on my Desktop with 64GB RAM it flies! Again, thanks for pointing that out. I should have mentioned that in my article.

Hi there, I am having some problems with my 5400. On all of my scanned pictures stray light / flares appear on the left and right side. First I thought my Mju is broken but it also appears with my G1 and old slides.

I normally account for that with some gradients in LR but this is getting very annoying lately.Here is how it look before and after adjusting it:

nc.helbaco.de/s/52KoWb6EzdN4eTkAnybody experienced with that?

Johan, please delete this post if you feel like I am misusing your comment section.

@Jaroslaw you have a light leak possibly due to someone opening your scanner before and removing adhesive. Get a guide online how to open the scanner (free) get some gaffer tape and patch up the light leak.@Laine the 5400 II has no downsides. Get it and a cheap old Windows PC or Mac and run the original Minolta software.

@Johan Thanks for your reply. Any idea where to look for the light leak? I opened the scanner and patched up some tape around the plate that covers the lens. No avail. Any ideas are highly appreciated!

silverfast are unclear about which version of 8 actually works with 5400 mark one. does the software use its own driver to see your minolta? you cannot use dimage software on windows 10 32 bit and silverfast stopped 32 bit support so a bit fogged. anyone care to tell me their current setup? or i go mac?

I could use an answer too. I just installed VueScan and Silverfast on macOS. VueScan worked out of the box (except my DiMAGE 5400 seems proper effed). Although SilverFast detected the scanner, it told me to install a driver (without providing one). Where the hell am I supposed to get a driver for a 17-year-old scanner that works on a 64bit ARM CPU? At least VueScan works without an OS driver.

Yes, correct I work with them as a negative.

But also the DNG file that is saved can not be read by AP. It just shows up as a preview size.

And no, that isn't feasible, since the color handling for vuescan isn't amazing saving the actual TIFF-file, I want to do it myself, adjusting the colors for the least lossless file.

What sort of scanner are you using? Although I have used VueScan on my Nikon film LS50 film scanner, I now use Silverfast. It is more expensive, but it delivers the goods. I suggest that you download a trial of Silverfast for your scanner to see if it delivers for you. The website is www.silverfast.com.

I've been using my Canoscan 9000f for a few weeks now (bought it secondhand) and it was working great, however, recently, the Scangear software crashes whenever I try to Preview or Scan film. There is no error message when this happens- it just crashes once the preview hits 100%.

I am using MP Navigator EX 3.1.5 and Driver version 16.0.5. This issue happens on my Windows 11 desktop and Windows 10 laptop. I have tried reinstalling the driver and MP Navigator software on both machines but the issue persists. I used the demo version of VueScan (not in the position to buy it yet) and it was able to scan no worries.

A repair or reinstall of drivers or an application having issues on top of an existing install doesn't always help. You might try removing the device, disconnecting from USB, uninstalling the drivers and any supporting applications, restarting, then reinstalling the drivers, connecting the device when prompted, and finally reinstalling any supporting applications. The scanner should be connected directly to an available USB port and not to a hub or adapter. There is no guarantee this will work, but it is a more comprehensive approach. Since the behavior can be reproduced, I would review the system event viewer logs and see if any additional information is available that might help identify the cause or fault. Both operating systems also include troubleshooters.

3a8082e126