The Vuescan discussion thread...

Just updated to Vuescan 9.7.24 on Mac, and my scans are no longer auto-loading into Preview (the PDF viewer). Has anyone else seen this, and have a workaround? It helps me keep an eye on how the scans look!

have you checked the output tab is set up correctly
And the Prefs tab has the correct viewer set.
 
have you checked the output tab is set up correctly
And the Prefs tab has the correct viewer set.
I think the Output tab is OK, but the Prefs tab had viewer set to Folder, which I guess is the source of my problems. Will test it later today, but I'm bemused as to how it changed! Thanks, Terry
 
Just had the new Vuescan newsletter from Ed and suggestions for tutorials to read while self-isolating, and apparently it now works with Raspberry Pi as well!

Here at Hamrick Software work continues as normal. Ed, Dave and myself are working from our home offices (in 3 different countries) and there is no change in our development program or the support levels you receive.

We do realise though that many of you will now be working from home, and will have a lot more free time in the house. We would like to suggest that now would be a great time to do all those scanning projects which take a lot of time and you've been putting off for years :)

On our Support page we have tutorials to help you with this, so take a look here: https://www.hamrick.com/support/ and this is the link for scanning multiple photos on a flatbed: https://www.hamrick.com/support/how-to-guides/how-to-scan-multiple-photos-on-a-flatbed.html. This could really help you stay in contact with loved ones and share your family history. If you're starting from the beginning, then read our newsletters from April 2018 to November 2018 where we ran a series of articles 'All about scanning photos'. https://www.hamrick.com/newsletter.html

In normal life! In the last newsletter we promised that we would continue to focus on adding new features and always being innovative.



With that in mind, we are delighted to announce that VueScan now supports Raspberry Pi – and it’s a late Christmas present for our customers. :) If you don’t know much about the Raspberry Pi then read below for details. We think you’ll be as excited as we are! If you own VueScan 9.7.25, then the version for the Raspberry Pi is free for you. Just go to www.hamrick.com from the web browser in your Raspberry Pi and click the red button – you’ll be scanning in minutes.
 
Anyone got any good resources they can point me to for settings and using this software.

I downloaded it a while ago and use it with my Plustek 8100 but not sure I’m getting the best results from it having come across odd bits on t’internet to start with.

I’m only scanning black and white so anything relevant to that would be a bonus.
 
Has anyone else noticed the latest version of Vuescan (I have 9.7.27) giving reduced options for scanning resolution? For my 7500i I'm now getting 900, 1800, 3600 and 7200 (plus Custom). There certainly used to be 1200 and 2400 ppi options as well. You can get them via custom, but it's a lot less convenient. I guess those resolutions are interpolated, though.
 
Has anyone else noticed the latest version of Vuescan (I have 9.7.27) giving reduced options for scanning resolution? For my 7500i I'm now getting 900, 1800, 3600 and 7200 (plus Custom). There certainly used to be 1200 and 2400 ppi options as well. You can get them via custom, but it's a lot less convenient. I guess those resolutions are interpolated, though.
I hadn’t noticed Chris, my scanning set up is pretty standard now so I tend not to notice some changes.
 
I hadn’t noticed Chris, my scanning set up is pretty standard now so I tend not to notice some changes.
Well that's the thing, so is my scanning setup (in fact my black and white settings are saved into a preset file and loaded before any scanning session)... so when I couldn't find the 2400 spi I normally used, I was right confused!

BTW, it isn't interpolation only, as a scan at 2400 spi takes longer than at 1800 and less than at 3600!
 
Has anyone else noticed the latest version of Vuescan (I have 9.7.27) giving reduced options for scanning resolution? For my 7500i I'm now getting 900, 1800, 3600 and 7200 (plus Custom). There certainly used to be 1200 and 2400 ppi options as well. You can get them via custom, but it's a lot less convenient. I guess those resolutions are interpolated, though.

The options you see are linked to the scanner you are using. However you can always set a custom value, but the result will rarely be as good as a native value as it has to be interpolated.
 
Hi
I've just seen this thread and am looking on advice for the best software to get for my Nikon Coolscan 5000Ed.
Seems to be a choice between Vuescan or Silverfast.
If anyone has used both please let me know your thoughts on this.
And is anyone hear using a Nikon Coolscan ?
(I'd like to know about best settings if you are ?)
Thanks
 
I think there are pros and cons to both. Silverfast is my choice because I trialled both and the results were better (or easier to get out-of-the-box) with Silverfast. They are both more than adequate for most needs. I did have to scrutinise at 100% to determine the best which most people don't need to do. The Silverfast license model is pants though (need to buy a new copy for each scanner vs Vuescan one copy does all). I found the UI of both pieces of software to be unintuitive, although I believe the latest release of Silverfast has fixed that.
(Epson V550 & Plustek 8100 user here though, sorry!)
 
I had a silverfast cutdown license for my reflects pro scan 10T scanner but never really got to grips with it so I got vuescan which I found pretty easy to use and gives good results.

I was going to give silverfast another go but got nowhere trying to get them to provide my license key ( which I had lost )
 
Has anyone got a good manual for Vuescan or can offer any guidance on using it ?
 
Has anyone got a good manual for Vuescan or can offer any guidance on using it ?
There is a Vuescan ssers handbook The Vuescan Bible but the last time I looked it was ridiclously expensive.

Just looked on Amazon, the Kindle dition is £18.99 the paperback vesrion is £263 :LOL::LOL::LOL:
 
Coo, it didn't cost that when I bought a copy...

Then again, it wasn't from Amazon.
 
Has anyone got a good manual for Vuescan or can offer any guidance on using it ?

I use vue scan on a reflecta pro 10T scanner. There are online resources if you google but I can do screen dumps of what I use if that is of any use - let me know.

eg hamrick’ site


As a staring point: ( and an ending point for me )

In general use default/ generic settings. There are options for some film neg types which I played around with but not useful.

For color: I use auto most of the time or neutral sometimes for night shots but you can adjust manually. If you have to fiddle with white balance/colour probably best to output in raw/tiff and post process but that types huge amounts of storage.

Filter: I just use" light" for IR scratch dust removal but you may need to wind this up if your negs are badly sccratched. I dont use garin reduction or sharpening.

The options you get depend on the scanner attached


Oh I just do 1 pass scanning.

richard
 
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My practical advice, based on my experience:

I use black and white film, and almost always either PanF or FP4. I have found that some negatives scan better if I change the film type, even if on the same roll (when 120 film, rather than sheets). This stems I think from the different film types being differentiated by different preset curves for the scan.
 
Another few thoughts since your post prompted me to actually look at the Vuescan pdf manual.

My aim to to scan our old negs and get a "reasonable" quality rather than a more "professional" approach.

I had known that you could profile the colour neg base and use that to offset scanned images but I haven't tried it before. It does seem to work pretty well.

You need a portion of unexposed, but developed film. Look at pages 66 and 67 of the manual and the " Advanced workflow suggestions" on page 27. The blank film can be on the leader and you do not need a complete frame.

Yet another instance where I should have " read the manual"

Richard

I just remembered that someone had used the inter-frame strips to profile the negative base colour - just zoom in - haven't tried it yet myself but sounds viable unless there is significant light leakage from adjacent frames
 
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Using the gaps is a really helpful way of speeding up the colour correction. One thing to be aware of is that you should also do this for each scanner you use if e.g. you use a flatbed for 120 and a dedicated for 35mm. So I have a saved Ektar profile for both.
 
Another few thoughts since your post prompted me to actually look at the Vuescan pdf manual.

My aim to to scan our old negs and get a "reasonable" quality rather than a more "professional" approach.

I had known that you could profile the colour neg base and use that to offset scanned images but I haven't tried it before. It does seem to work pretty well.

You need a portion of unexposed, but developed film. Look at pages 66 and 67 of the manual and the " Advanced workflow suggestions" on page 27. The blank film can be on the leader and you do not need a complete frame.

Yet another instance where I should have " read the manual"

Richard

I just remembered that someone had used the inter-frame strips to profile the negative base colour - just zoom in - haven't tried it yet myself but sounds viable unless there is significant light leakage from adjacent frames
I tried this with some strips of very old film from 1978 (edge markings only say Fuji 307). I tried to follow the advice as closely as possible, but the results weren't encouraging. In the end I got decent results by scanning with Generic Color Negative and ticking the Restore Faded Colours box. Maybe I should have tried that in combination with the experiment... so I don't regard my failure as definitive at all.
 
I tried this with some strips of very old film from 1978 (edge markings only say Fuji 307). I tried to follow the advice as closely as possible, but the results weren't encouraging. In the end I got decent results by scanning with Generic Color Negative and ticking the Restore Faded Colours box. Maybe I should have tried that in combination with the experiment... so I don't regard my failure as definitive at all.

Yes, I have been trying this for the last few rolls - it’s a bit curate’s egg ish - sometimes it’s fine and others it isn’t.

I suspect getting the base colour registered is part of the problem. When I’ve got a clear leader section it’s better. When I just have to work with an inter frame boundary it’s more tricky.

FWIW here is what I do:

set a frame divider in the scan centre

set film type etc to generic

set colour to “white balance”

set preview resolution to 1000 or fairly high

clear “ lock exposure”

scan preview

crop to inter frame and keep clear of light leakage from adjacent frame

set “lock exposure”

scan preview again

check crop area is still well within inter frame

check “lock base colour”

scan preview again

then:

set up normal scan - leaving the colour on “white balance” for every scan.

Still, I often have to go open the jpeg scans in post ( I use dxo pl4 but anything will do ) - and then tweak white balance, clarity/vibrance/etc etc.
Probably better to scan into raw and use colorperfect etc but too expensive for me.

I haven’t found “restore colour” etc to work very well

Even when I have identified the film type and it’s on Hamrick’s pull down list - I haven’t had much success - I leave everything on generic now.

By the way, I am just processing a batch of my wife’s photos from the 80’s: Olympus Pen F half frame - on various colour print films ( mostly Kodak colour cp100 )

We have the original prints from Boots and others - they are aweful !!! horrid orange caste as if they hadn’t fully subtracted the film base colour or its inverse. Anyway, the scanner’s efforts have converted the negs into nice, viewable, images. Great to view now on ipad.
My wife is dead chuffed and so am I - makes it all worthwhile.
 
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Yes, I have been trying this for the last few rolls - it’s a bit curate’s egg ish - sometimes it’s fine and others it isn’t.

I suspect getting the base colour registered is part of the problem. When I’ve got a clear leader section it’s better. When I just have to work with an inter frame boundary it’s more tricky.

FWIW here is what I do:

set a frame divider in the scan centre

[...]

crop to inter frame and keep clear of light leakage from adjacent frame

I did it with a full clear frame at the start of the roll. I must admit, when I scanned the blank frame there was a LOT of variation across the frame. I picked an area relatively clear of other defects, but perhaps I should have experimented with other areas.

[...]
By the way, I am just processing a batch of my wife’s photos from the 80’s: Olympus Pen F half frame - on various colour print films ( mostly Kodak colour cp100 )

We have the original prints from Boots and others - they are aweful !!! horrid orange caste as if they hadn’t fully subtracted the film base colour or its inverse. Anyway, the scanner’s efforts have converted the negs into nice, viewable, images. Great to view now on ipad.
My wife is dead chuffed and so am I - makes it all worthwhile.

Yes, the most recent old roll I processed, from 1978, had one print in the envelope, and it was dire too. I don't remember prints being so bad when first viewed in those days, but of course it's a long time ago. But I'm thinking that some of it might be poor quality printing, presumably done in a wide range of labs under a lot of pressure. I certainly didn't seek out quality labs in those days, just pop the film in the supplied envelope, or back to the chemist's shop!
 
Please write where and how can I find Vuescan drivers. I mean Windows folder, file names or properties by which I can define them. Are they signed by Vuescan?
 
I'm not quite sure what you mean, here. I have a Plustek 7500i, and Vuescan used the Plustek drivers until they stopped working due to OS upgrades on my Mac (mandated 64-bit software). At that point, Vuescan was updated (as it is most weeks) for free, and the Plustek started working again. Not being an expert, I think (but don't know) that Vuescan had somehow moved the driver functionality into the main program. There was certainly nothing complicated about the installation, just drag this file into the Applications folder... but of course, that was on a Mac!
 
Is it me, the software or the scanner. I have PrimeFilm XAs and I am using Vuescan 9.7.60. When I insert film (uncut roll) and I have batch turned off. I select preview and I get either a frame advance, a few frames advancing (2 to 4) or the whole roll advances. It pulls the film through and stop for a sec on each frame but does not scan. Is there a setting I do not know causing this? Any ideas? And on occasion it will do what is suppose to and preview scan the first frame or the frame I have selected but most often it does not.

P.S. if this is the wrong place to post this please point me to where I should?
 
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I think this is probably the right thread, Steve, but I have not seen anyone here report using this scanner. However, I did find a post on rangefinderforum suggesting it is a re-branded Reflecta RPS 10 M, so someone might have some experience of that... There may also be some hints in the post or thread linked to above (for example, someone seemed to be suggesting initialising in Cyberview first, but I haven't got far enough to know what the view of that was...
 
Is it me, the software or the scanner. I have PrimeFilm XAs and I am using Vuescan 9.7.60. When I insert film (uncut roll) and I have batch turned off. I select preview and I get either a frame advance, a few frames advancing (2 to 4) or the whole roll advances. It pulls the film through and stop for a sec on each frame but does not scan. Is there a setting I do not know causing this? Any ideas? And on occasion it will do what is suppose to and preview scan the first frame or the frame I have selected but most often it does not.

P.S. if this is the wrong place to post this please point me to where I should?
As ChrisR says - it is the Reflects 10M ( compare a picture of that ).

Don’t have that - just the 10T with no advance.

You have probably tried all the following but what I would do is:

( NB if you uninstall vuescan make sure you have all the license info etc needed to reinstall it )

Make sure the scanner has fully initialised before loading Vuescan ( had problems with that )

Change the usb cable / port if you can ( again I had a duff usb cable - it does happen )

Uninstall / reinstall latest version of cyberview - does it work with that ?

Uninstall cyberview and vuescan and install older version of vuescan ALONE- try that

Have you another computer you can try it on ?

Don’t think you need cyberview installed for viewscan to work at least I don’t have it installed on my mac for the 1OT

After that it is about tech support Hamrick Reflecta and searching forums.

BTW it is never YOU - scanners are the work of the devil.
 
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Not sure if it’s ok to ask here, but when I scan an image, saved as a Tiff file, it used to open in Photoshop, for some reason, it now opens Photoshop but the file doesn’t open, have to open it manually from file open….any thoughts please ? Thanks
 
Vuescan problem?


I recently spotted a problem with some of my scans on the Plustek 7500i, using Vuescan Pro (version 9.7.76 initially). I had scanned a roll, and printed off a few candidates, preparatory to posting on twitter (my resolution this year). Close inspection of one print showed some really odd vertical line artefacts near some high contrast edges:

Screenshot scan artefacts 2022-02-09 at 22.37.22.jpg

Blow up of image section

I’ve been in correspondence with Ed Hamrick, the author of Vuescan. He asked me to try older versions. So far we have established that the problem was certainly occurring early last year:

21010APMXBW21 Feather artefacts.jpg

(When I first saw this feather image, I was very confused, but decided it must have been some sort of weird ice effect!)

The last version I could find that did NOT show the problem was 9.4.67.

Since my Plustek started to be a bit unreliable registering second passes (resulting in weird, sort-of-double-exposure scans), I have been scanning at twice the desired resolution and using the “reduce by 2” option in the output tab. Specifically, I usually want 2400 samples per inch scans, so I’ve been scanning at 4800 spi.

We have established that the problem occurs:
  • at 4800 reduced by 2
  • at 4800 not reduced
  • at 7200 reduced by 4 (which produces both vertical and horizontal artefacts)
  • at 4800 reduced by 4 (which only produced vertical artefacts)
The problem does not occur:
  • at 7200 not reduced
  • at 3600 not reduced
  • at 3600 reduced by 2
So all that is pretty weird. IMHO the problem is likely due to a change in the reduction/interpolation algorithm that allows non-native resolutions etc, but that is speculation and un-confirmed.

At the moment all is quiet from Ed; I haven’t heard if it’s my problem or Vuescan’s (I did do a scan with a trial version of Silverfast 8, but it didn’t allow me to select 4800, which I think is NOT a native resolution for the Plustek). I have just asked him a follow-up question.

My last roll I scanned as I used to, ie a 2400 spi scan with two passes, and it worked OK, so I may do that again today.

So, my advice? If you have been scanning with Vuescan Pro in recent years using non-native resolutions or the size reduction option, I would go back and look closely at some of your scans. These artefacts are generally not very noticeable at first glance (the feather above was an exception), generally just giving a feeling of surprising softness to the image. Look particularly for edges at a slant. I have found the problem in all sorts of images once I looked more closely!





I will keep you informed.
 
I asked Ed Hamrick "... were you able to determine whether the artefacts I was finding with some scans at 4800 and 4800 reduced by 2 on my Plustek 7500i were due to Vuescan or likely a more local problem? I am about to scan another roll, and would like to know if it’s safe to scan using my previous technique. I did do a test using your latest version (9.7.79) and still seemed to be getting the problem."

He replied: "Unfortunately, I don’t know the answer to this. I’d suggest scanning at 3600 dpi to get around this problem."

Luckily I'm finding my Plustek 7500i is currently proving sufficiently reliable to do 2-pass scanning at 2400, and that seems to be working out for me at the moment. Got through the last horrible roll of Bergger Pancro400, anyway!

(Vuescan does seem to have dug reasonable images out of extremely thin negatives, thank goodness. I was grumpy as heck on twitter from seeing the negs hanging up through scanning until I'd done a first PP pass!)
 
Is it possible with Vuescan to print out the Infrared filter results separately from the image? I want a record of only the dust and scratches in a separate file, don't know if this is possible.
 
Is it possible with Vuescan to print out the Infrared filter results separately from the image? I want a record of only the dust and scratches in a separate file, don't know if this is possible.
Saving as TIFF files has the option of saving 16 bit IR data. You can also save 64bit RGBI data in a TIFF which could allow you to use the IR data to adjust the RGB data with your own settings and scripts.
 
I'm a bit confused, Mads. Is that two consecutive frames, or one frame before and after some post processing? I thought it might be the latter, but one dust spot has disappeared, and nother appeared (on the right sleeve). There's certainly something odd going on around the head, but I assume that is something in the background. Left frame is rather odd.

Sometimes when I get a weird scan with Vuescan, I just scan it again straight away, and that fixes things...
 
I'm a bit confused, Mads. Is that two consecutive frames, or one frame before and after some post processing? I thought it might be the latter, but one dust spot has disappeared, and nother appeared (on the right sleeve). There's certainly something odd going on around the head, but I assume that is something in the background. Left frame is rather odd.

Sometimes when I get a weird scan with Vuescan, I just scan it again straight away, and that fixes things...

Sorry Chris, its the same frame rescanned after shuffling the frame and wiping it (sodding dust) and tweaking a setting.
The way the darker bits of his top are being rendered is, I don't know, mottled maybe?

One on the right is infinitely better but the darker colour of his top seems clipped to me. Does that make sense?
 
Sorry Chris, its the same frame rescanned after shuffling the frame and wiping it (sodding dust) and tweaking a setting.
The way the darker bits of his top are being rendered is, I don't know, mottled maybe?

One on the right is infinitely better but the darker colour of his top seems clipped to me. Does that make sense?
Makes a lot more sense now, though I'm not seeing too much of a problem with the jumper. But you were there! How does the neg look under a loupe?
 
Makes a lot more sense now, though I'm not seeing too much of a problem with the jumper. But you were there! How does the neg look under a loupe?
A little thinner than I'd like but not too bad

ETA: Just had a look round flickr and google and have noticed that the texture that I was attributing to being a crappy scan does actually appear to be a characteristic of the film.
Lesson learned there. On the plus side, finally got around to updating viewscan to the latest version
ETAA: Plugged the scanner into another pc that has epson scan on it and had exactly the same results, so definitely not a vuescan issue.

Thanks for trying to help Chris :)
 
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Most scanning software, vuescan included, has the option to choose the %s of a scan that will be set to full black and full white. Setting that too high can give an effect like on the lighter scan where dark areas on the sweater stand out as is lumping several levels together as full black. Not cropping the scan area to only include exposed areas can also cause the software's exposure algorithm to misbehave.
 
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