Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/09/24

[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]

Subject: Re: [Leica] Silverfast scanning software upgrades
From: Alex Hurst <corkflor@iol.ie>
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 15:30:25 +0100

Dan Post wrote:

>I played with their demo version- I am very impressed! I too would like to
>hear some more 'personal' experiences, and impressions about the Silverfast
>software!

I think the main thing about this software is that it's equally
user-friendly to rookies like myself and scanning sophisticates who want
total control over what they're doing.

The user interface is very intuitive, and (dare I say) Mac-like.

It has an 'automatic' feature which adjusts for optimum contrast and
brilliance at the pre-scan stage (that's the doohickey that looks like a
lens iris), and it also has a series of choices where it optimises for,
say, 'skin tones' or 'technical'. In 99% of cases this works very well with
both trannie and reflective material. But if you want the individual
controls, they're all there. Good manual too.

Getting the scan bang-on saves hours of fiddling about in Photoshop, though
I also use a a brilliant PS plug-in called Extensis Intellihance Pro at
this stage. Run your scanned file through this one filter, and it
intelligently optimises about ten parameters at once. If you don't like its
guess, you can easily change them one by one, and see exactly what it does
to the result in a side-by-side comparison with the original.

Both Silverfast and Intellihance are great timesavers. I'm certainly going
for the Silverfast upgrade to 4.0, which seems to do even more things
automatically for enthusiastic amateurs like me.

Happy scanning!

Slan

Alex




Alex Hurst
Cork Florists
19 Winthrop St, Cork
Republic of Ireland
Tel: +353 21 270 907
Fax: +353 21 271 248
email: corkflor@iol.ie
Website: http://www.flowerlink.com/corkflorists
Home website: http://homepages.iol.ie/~corkflor/