3. March 2010
NEW SilverFast Video
After the IT-Enquirer extensively covered SilverFast recently, Erik Vlietinck has made a video to demonstrate just how easy it is to bring color-faded negatives back to life in no time using the SilverFast Archive Suite.


You can read the complete article here ... 26. February 2010
What can software do to improve a scan?
Quite a lot! Erik Vlietinck has ascertained this fact in his latest article for the IT-Enquirer.

Producing digital copies of photos and slides is fairly easy nowadays. Several scanner manufacturers have low-priced devices on the market, that just have to be connected to the computer to get detected automatically by actual operating systems and therewith are ready to use immediately.
The results to achive this are at utmost mediocre. For producing scans whose quality can compare to or exceed that of digital photographs, it's not sufficient to just use a very expensive scanner; the most important component is the scanner software.

IT-Enquirer about SilverFast: "Some software can get very near to perfect results, though. By exploiting modern scanners’ technical and optical capabilities to the fullest, the scanner software can do more than just turn on the lamp and move the scanning element. It can detect and remove dust speckles and scratches; it can sharpen the image and colour correct the image. It can even correct photographs that, due to old age, display colour shifts you normally can’t correct in one Photoshop session. [...]

(Please click to enlarge)

In SilverFast Archive Suite version 6.6.1 the 64-bit HDRi color files and 32-bit grayscale files contain all readable image information including the information of modern scanners’ infrared channels, using this data for image optimization, e.g. dust and scratch removal."

Besides iSRD® and HDRi the article introduces some other SilverFast features the author claims are responsible for enabling SilverFast to produce near perfect results. Scanner specific data is saved with the image data, e.g. for a later automatic Unsharp-Masking, which regards the scanner's own characteristics. When scanning transparencies SilverFast Multi-Exposure® is able to increase the scanner's dynamic range, i.e. the contrast range.
Color casts are reliably removed by an integrated color management, which does also allow the scanning of very challenging film types like Kodachrome slides. Therefore the automatic IT8 color calibration with a special calibration target produced by LaserSoft Imaging is especially helpful.

You can read the entire article here ... 16. February 2010
New version online - 6.6.1r6

15. January 2010
The optimum archiving solution: SilverFast Archive Suite
The latest issue 01/2010 of the French .psd PHOTOSHOP magazine features an enthused article about the SilverFast Archive Suite.

.psd magazine: "LaserSoft Imaging succeeded to develop a software that allows the effective digitization of large image collections in record time."
(cf. .psd magazine 01/2010 p.49)

The new 64bit HDRi format, which contains the infrared channel's data besides the usual image information, is introduced initially. These additional RAW scan infrared data can be used later on to remove dust and scratches with SilverFast iSRD®. The improved iSRD® uses more searching and detail saving than the usual iCE®, and operates up to 4x faster on systems with multicore processors.
Some further SilverFast features are addressed in the article's second part as well as the workflow of the Archive Suite in detail. 12. January 2010
Update: The improved Auto-Sharpening USM is now available for Canon and Nikon scanners

(Click to enlarge)

With version 6.6.1r4b SilverFast saves scanner related information along with the image data. This allows an advanced automatic Unsharp Masking for the later post-processing with SilverFast HDR, which takes the specific scanner details into account and is therefore able to produce brilliant, pin sharp images.

After this feature was previously available for EPSON scanners only, it can now also be used with scanners of the brands Canon and Nikon.

Read more about the SilverFast Unsharp Masking.

8. January 2010
Filmscans that last forever - with SilverFast
"They lie in boxes and cases, they fade and mold - slides and negatives from many years of analogue photography."

This is the introduction to a detailed article on film scanning released in the latest issue 02/2010 of German MACup magazine. Problems that often occur when scanning older film and basic tips therefore are covered as well as new and helpful technologies - also understandable for beginners.



The MACup editorial staff soon concludes: "Prerequisite for perfect scans of transparent originals is a proper film scanner. The device should feature an infrared sensor in any case, [...] and it should cooperate with the latest version of scan software SilverFast."

The second part starts with a detailed introduction of SilverFast, which explains important features like SilverFast Multi-Exposure®, iSRD® and the new 64-bit HDRi format. A following SilverFast workflow résumé completes the article.

Please read the entire article in the actual MACup magazine issue (German) or ...

... visit our HDRi website. 6. January 2010
A way to recover old Kodachrome treasures - with SilverFast Ai 6.6
After 75 years of production Kodak has discontinued the successful Kodachrome film in 2009. Due to the durability of these films, the treasure of film material that is lying in photographer's archives or private slide collections is hard to imagine. Kodachrome film has very special characteristics, for which it is not easy to save these treasures, i.e. to digitize or to scan them. The German photography magazine fotoforum devotes an article to this topic in the first issue of 2010 and therefore tests the digitization of Kodachrome slides with SilverFast.


A Reflecta DigitDia 5000, which is capable of batch scanning up to 100 slides using a slide feeder and the SilverFast automatics, was used for the testings. The SilverFast Kodachrome profiles prevented the bluecast, that normally shows up when scanning Kodachromes. Perfect truecolor results were received after calibrating the scanner using a special Kodachrome IT8 target from LaserSoft Imaging. An automatic dust and scratch removal is very complicated with Kodachrome slides. Using SilverFast's iSRD® however, the editorial staff managed to quickly achieve impressive results.

The fotoforum's conclusion: "The scan software SilverFast is well suited for achieving great Kodachrome scans. The Kodachrome calibration ensures that Kodachromes are recognized colortruly without requiring the user to do extensive color corrections afterwards. Additionally SilverFast's dust and scratch removal iSRD does a good job on digitally cleaning the old Kodachrome slides."

Learn more about the SilverFast Kodachrome features and the Kodachrome targets on our websites.