[Leica] Scanning Software

[abridge at dcn.org (Adam Bridge)]

On 5/14/04 <timothy.nelson@yale.edu (Timothy Nelson)> thoughtfully wrote: 

>I'm astonished that so many folks prefer Nikon scanning software over 
>VueScan for scanning negatives! I was ready to toss my LS-4000 out 
>the window until I switched to VueScan. The Nikon software was great 
>for scanning slides, OK for color neg, but absolutely clueless for BW 
>negs. VueScan gives me full-range scans of negs, and has excellent 
>profiles to choose for many specific color and BW neg films. My 
>recollection is that the Nikon software only has generic negative 
>film profiles. If you've been settling for these generic profiles, 
>you will be surprised by what your scans will be like with a more 
>accurate film profile.  You can test the appearance of various film 
>profiles on the same raw scan, and even save the raw scan to apply 
>different profiles, white balances, or other treatments later. This 
>is like shooting RAW in a digital camera. My experience has been that 
>VueScan TIFFs rarely need more than "artistic" adjustment in 
>Photoshop, while Nikon-guided scans needed major work just to get 
>something that looked like a contact print of a neg. I decided that 
>Nikon had put its focus on the slide shooters, with negative films 
>secondary.

I have standard settings for the films I use which I have saved. I choose the
setting, get thumbnails of the entire roll, check the first image, and it scans.
It just works. I'm very happy with my scans.

I routinely, about once a quarter, compare scans from the latest version of
VueScan with the Nikon software. I don't see a difference.

>As to the supposedly complex user interface of VueScan, what's to 
>learn? You choose the source, the destination, and the film profile. 
>The rest is optional adjustment, explained in the on-line User Guide. 
>The default scans are usually excellent because the software sets 
>exposure and white balance automatically. Perhaps the unhappy 
>VueScan experiences were with an earlier version? It is now up to 
>VueScan 8.

VueScan's GUI is example of the worst kind of GUI design. You can DO it, but the
design is, well, the design of someone who really cares about operating the
scanner and for whom a zillion little settings is a cool thing. Now, having said
this, the Nikon software has its own nasty deficincies as well, but they are
mild compared to eccentric VueScan interface.

Adam