[Leica] Re: OT- Adfvice needed re. film scanner

[drodgers at casefarms.com (David Rodgers)]

A lot of people swear by Vuescan. I'm not one of them. I haven't found
any better results using Vuescan, versus scanning raw (using software
that comes with the scanner) and Photoshop. I've used Nikon, Epson and
Minolta scanners, and Vuescan since 1999. (Leaf scanners too, though not
with Vuescan)  

I recently spent countless hours trying to produce an image with Vuescan
that equaled the same neg scanned with Dimage Scan Utility (RAW) and
converted in Photoshop. I couldn't. I kept getting strange artifacts and
more noise with VS. They weren't obvious, but on close examination they
were there, and I could eliminate them. I kept thinking, "this can't be,
it's Vuescan!" I tweaked every setting I could think of, but I couldn't
unlock the key. 

I'm sure if I'd spent that time on the DSU PS combo, I could have
improved on that scan. As it was it was plug and play.   

There are some unique things you can do with Vuescan. It's interesting
software. It costs less than Silverfast, which many compare it to. The
user interface is somewhat kludgy. And maybe others are better than I
using it. I already have PS, and scanning software comes bundled with
every scanner. FWIW, I've had good luck with that.     

-----Original Message-----
From: firkin [mailto:firkin@gexrp01.ncable.net.au] 
Sent: Thursday, January 05, 2006 6:30 PM
To: Leica Users Group
Subject: [Leica] Re: OT- Adfvice needed re. film scanner

Colin,
I have the 5000 Nikon with roll film and slide feeders. It makes very
fine 
scans when I get it right. I have a similar situation to you. I began
with 
the slides. Kodachrome mounts do occasionally jam. I found that if the
join 
was on the bottom, it could stick, so I had to scan upside down for
many. It 
seemed to be going well with the Nikon software, but I had "strong"
advise 
to use Vuescan: I'm not convinced by it, but it was also at that time
that I 
stopped the slides and moved to the negs. Scanning negs has not been a
total 
success. My idea of scanning a roll of 36 and walking off has not really

worked, and I've yet to master colour balance from the negs. B/w
scanning 
has been a real trial for me. I shot a lot of Rollei R3 film and the two
do 
not mix. Nikon's only comment was: Rollei R3 is not on our list of 
recommended films" 

This year I have to solve some of my problems: I am storing images on
250meg 
hard drives and at 130 meg per image full scanning is out of the
question 
for all images. So do you scan at a lower res, sort and organize then
scan 
the good ones at a high res. Do you scan at high res and decrease file
size 
later ( this is what I have done, but I don't have the time to play with
the 
huge files and sort them !!!!!) 

I am more than happy to hear a good thread on this one: might help me. I

certainly need help with negs and vuescan. 

Cheers 

Colin J writes: 


> 
> Is the LS5000ED the only choice here?  If there
> is anyone with experience of using the LS5000ED
> to scan some or all of the mix of films I listed
> above, I would be very pleased indeed to hear
> from you.  
> 
 


Alastair Firkin
www.afirkin.com
www.familyofman2.com