Forum e.software - ... Ich habe bei der RAW-Konvertierung mit verschiedenen Programmen eine recht erstaunliche Entdeckung gemacht. Die Größe des aus der Konvertierung resultierenden Bildes ist nämlich keineswegs bei jeder Software gleich. Hier die Werte für die von mir getesteten Programme:

• CaptureOne LE: 2560x1920= 4.915.200 pixel / links mehr - rechts weniger
• OlympusViewer: 2560x1920= 4.915.200 pixel / rechts mehr - links weniger
• Adobe Camera Raw 3.2: 2560x1920= 4.915.200 pixel / rechts mehr - links weniger
• SilverFast DC Pro: 2622x1964= 5.149.608 pixel / rundum mehr

...
Wenn's aber auf optimale Farbe und Schattenzeichnung angeht, ist die SilverFast Software noch einen Ticken besser. Leider kann ich die Olympus Software überhaupt nicht empfehlen. Sie ist langsam und vom Ergebnis noch ein gutes Stück hinter dem Adobe Konverter. CaptureOne ist sicher ähnlich gut wie SilverFast, dabei nicht ganz so "hungrig" nach Rechnerleistung. Allerding fehlt mir die Möglichkeit der Profilierung bezüglich der Farben und die Menge an Extrapixeln von SilverFast bietet CaptureOne eben auch nicht.....

Chris Bourne (Design Alliance) - The one thing I simply cannot understand, and this is just a comment, is why Canon produce such a competent scanner and give it such a limited driver. The results from Silver Scan are so vastly superior to anything I could get from the native driver it is like having a different machine!

You can count on another SilverFast convert here!

John Harvey, 16.10.2006 - "I've been using Leaf 45 scanners for about the last 5 years. When Silverfast AI became available I was an early user. Since it's start the program has been slowly improving and growing. Nils Heidorn and the head of Lasersoft Imaging, Karl-Heinz Zahorsky, have made this a labor of love since the Leaf 45 and now the 35 are not the hot ticket owned by tens of thousands of photographers. They recognized that these scanners are really exceptional pieces of equipment. Yes, they are slow, but the results are worth the time if you are not in a production situation. We should be thankful that they took this project on.

I just finished scanning a set of old 6x6 black and white negatives for a show. They were so dusty I could not believe I'd ever be able to make prints. I fired up my Leaf45 and used their SRD option which is a software based scratch and dust removal program within the Ai software. It was a bit difficult at first getting the hang of applying the program but I must say the results justified the work. I'm more than ever convinced that if you have a Leaf scanner you should give this software a try. They have reduced the price and I think it is well worth it. Let me ad that I am not in any way involved with Lasersoft Imaging. I'm just glad that they have extended the life of my scanner"

Cliff Perrin, 11.10.2006 - "I have been using scanners in both a professional, and private environment since "affordable" high quality equipment came to the market during the early 1990's. One of the greatest problems has always been the limitations of OEM scanner drivers in delivering results that truly, visually represent what you are scanning.
Silverfast has certainly come to the rescue with fully-featured, custom produced drivers that give you total mastery over the image at every level of the workflow. They are the yardstick by which all scanner manufacturers' should strive to equal. These products really do work! Don't take my word for it! Download a free trial - and see the difference!"

haydnseek on flickr - I can say that I run the Epson 4490 with Silverfast SE and am blown away by its' capabilities......

Ed Richards, 01.06.2006 - I have been playing with the Silverfast demo for a few days to see if the multi-scanning really works. I have used multi-scanning on Vuescan with a Canon 9950 and the registration is not quite good enough. With the new Silverfast, the registration is usually perfect, even at 16 scans. It is very impressive. One possible bug is that when you start Silverfast it comes up with the last preview. If you are scanning the same negative in more than one session, it is easy to just start the second scan without a new preview. I think if you do the registration does not always work - I have noticed that every few multi-scans I get one with doubled images and I think this is why, but I have not kept notes so I am not sure yet. The cheapest way in is Silverfast SE, then scan to the HDR choice and do the corrections in your editor. Otherwise I think you need to go to AI to get 16/48 bit and corrections in Silverfast.

John Hennessy, 16.05.2005 - I have to agree with Kirk that the new multiscan capability of Siverfast AI is a great improvement over the multipass method. I just downloaded it and tried it on a 4x5 Astia image of mine with dewy grass and gossamers in the foreground. With the old multipass, I had to try several times before the blades of grass and gossamers were evidently as sharp as the film. One failed attempt even produced two blades for every one in the film! But multiscaning, with only one try, produced a file much much better than the best multipass. Ironically, it was so much better that I regret having to pay extra for it---it should have been there all along. Maybe AI "Studio" (which is what one needs to upgrade to in order to get the multiscan capability) does other things I have not noticed yet. On the other hand, if multiscan software is a programming breakthrough, then Lasersoft deserves whatever the market will bear. Why upgrading the SE version costs so little is a mystery but no serious photographer should be without the AI version anyway just for the scanner profiling aspect if nothing else. I volunteered for the scan-around testing at http://largeformatphotography.info/scan-comparison/ (and in View Camera) and it will be interesting to see how the Epsons stack up with Silverfast. I believe the Epson 3200 used in tests was used with its own software--which is useless.

Kirk Gittings, 17.05.2005 - The new multisampling feature in SF Studio appears in my testing to be a real breakthrough......It would be hard to surpass the noise reduction of SF Studio. My tests also reveal that with SF Studio you get the most noise reduction in RGB files (noise is virtually eliminated completely) even if you are looking for a grayscale image as the final product. So I am scanning 4x5 b&w negs as 48bit RGB files with 16 sampling passes and then converting them to 16 bit grayscale. The exact opposite was true with SFAI 6. You would get much less noise with grayscale scans with SFAI 6.

Domenico Pescosolido - Hi all, I would like to know if there are any important differences between Nikon Scan and SilverFast with scanner Nikon V LS-50, in other words if with SilverFast it's possible to reach better works compared with Nikon Scan software and if it's simply to use compared with Nikon software.

In particular I have some slides FujiChrome Velvia 50 undexposed of 1/3 with a lot of green and blue tones that I didn't have good succeess with Nikon Scan (too light or too dark and with coulours without the right contrast and lights).
Thanks

- Hey Vicki, speak for yourself. I'm still happily using my ancient Epson Expression 636 scanner with a SCSI card in my PowerMac dual1Ghz G4, using the Silverfast SE driver. I don't have any problems with SCSI at all, other than that to have the OS recognize the scanner, I have to have the scanner powered on at boot time (not a problem since I reboot about once every month or so).

If your scanner software sucks, you really should check out SilverFast SE, it's really cheap, $50, and supports a wide variety of scanners, even old discontinued ones without any current drivers, like my Epson. You can download trial versions from silverfast.com and if it works OK, you can buy a serial number online to unlock it.

I've been considering upgrading to SilverFast AI, which is their top end software at about $500 IIRC, it has all the pro tools like ICC profiling, I haven't seen such an advanced scanner driver since I used to work on a $250k drum scanner. But I haven't found a scanner I like that is good enough for the software. No, all scanner drivers don't suck, it should be obvious in this case that I've found a driver I like so much that I need to find a good scanner to go with the driver! And I am especially fond of the Silverfast guys because they support legacy hardware so I don't have to buy new equipment.