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Silverfast 8

weinschela

Subscriber Member
Having had Silverfast 6.x, I have been offered Silverfast 8 at a 50% discount -- but that means about $220 even after the discount. I am wondering whether those experienced scanners here have an opinion on whether this is worth it or a extravagance.

My scanning is occasional negatives and slides on a Nikon LS4000. By occasional I mean probably a hundred or less a year. The Nikon Scan software works but I'd have to boot into Snow Leopard for it as it won't run on OS X 10.7.

Any advice appreciated.
 

JCVG

New member
I've just bought an Epson V700 and it comes with Silverfast SE. But it won't work with Lion so I have downloaded the demo version of Silverfast 8 SE Plus. So far disappointed during the past 2 days I've tried it, crashed maybe 4 times, I have some very huge weird black stuffs all over the scan making them just totally useless (I'm not talking about the watermark)!

I wrote to the support and no response except an automatic email to say they are busy with the launch of the new software and it can take a while for them to respond...

First impression? Not that good and you should wait a bit as obviously this software is not ready. Beside if your version 6.x is working properly I don't think upgrading (especially at this price) is a good idea for a hundred scans. The problem though is that Silverfast 6.x won't run with Snow Leopard indeed.

Another option is Vuescan. It's "Lion ready" and actually it is FREE IF you move from Silverfast to Vuescan! You can't beat that and for one hundred scans per year I think it's a good alternative for the price! ;)

JC
 

weinschela

Subscriber Member
Thanks. I am sorry SF is not working for you but happy you shared that; I will forgo spending the money. I did the following: (1) I will try out Vuescan; last time I did that I probably didn't give it a fair shot. (2) Before I upgraded to Lion, I cloned my Snow Leopard disk. If I find I need to use Nikon scan I will boot into Snow Leopard and run it. My photo files are on separate HD's anyhow.

By the way, I have always though SF was one of the least intuitive programs (almost incomprehensible interface), even if it is supposedly very powerful. And I certainly was not happy about being forced to buy a new copy (even at 50% off). If they had offered it at $100 I would have probably spent it. Now that money will go into the gear fund.
 
L

LSI_Ketelhohn

Guest
Dear JCVG,

according to our support system your questions have been answered by myself and another colleague.
Please tell us if those mails maybe did not reach you or if any questions remain unanswered.


kind regards,
Arne Ketelhohn.
 

JCVG

New member
Dear Arne,

I've got an email from you indeed 8/31/11 after my post here (sent you an email 8/25/11).

I still have the same problem and deleting the preferences doesn't change anything. See the pictures below.

As suggested in your email, deleting the preferences doesn't change anything.

But to be honest I didn't try to unplug my printer, my wacom tablet, my external hardrives etc as you suggest too...

If i have to unplug everything every time i want to use Silferfast then i think there is some problem with this software.

So my first impression remain the same, not ready yet.

Am I the only one with this problem?

Kind regards,

JC
 
L

LSI_Ketelhohn

Guest
Dear JC,

that looks as if iSRD (infrared scratch and dust removal) is active.
Infrared correction can not be used with B&W films using a silver halide emulsion.
The emulsion distorts the infrared light causing those structures.
This unfortunately is a physical effect not even our programmers can circumvent.

kind regards,
Arne Ketelhohn.
 

JCVG

New member
Dear Arne,

Thanks for your answer and I didn't know that! I've searched everywhere on the website and couldn't find any reason why it was doing this. I guess you should put a warning somewhere or maybe I've missed this information somewhere.

Well... That was my biggest concern with this software!

Few more things though:

I still have some problem when rotating one slide they all rotate together, why can't we rotate them one by one? Or maybe I'm doing something wrong again.

When I select a film type it is not automatically applied to all the slides. Or when I make an adjustment it doesn't always copy it to all the slides (even using the slides copy to all setting).

Thanks,

JC

Alan: sorry we have totally hijacked your thread.
 
L

LSI_Ketelhohn

Guest
Dear Alan,

yes sorry about that.
If you have any pricing questions I suggest you contact our sales department.


Dear JC,

I wrote you a mail.
So we do not have to block this thread.


kind regards,
Arne Ketelhohn.
 

Udo

Member
SF8 does not support the slide feeder on my Nikon Coolscan 5000 for batch scanning which is a pity. So, no upgrade for me as long as this feature is not being added.

Regards, Udo
 
L

LSI_Ketelhohn

Guest
Dear Udo,

We are testing the SF-200/210 right at this moment.
Our developers are just making a few last adjustment so the support will be available very soon.

kind regards,
Arne Ketelhohn.
 

horosu

Member
I have bought Silverfast 8 some weeks ago (for Nikon V ED). First impressions were favorable and the scanning speed was markedly better than Vuescan

However, lately it regularly crashes my scanner, such that I have to reboot it or the computer. After some testing I found out that this happens only when scanning at 4000 dpi, the nominal resolution of my scanner.

Then I retried Vuescan: it works flawlessly, albeit at a much lower speed.

Sometime I think that speed is precisely the issue (when scanning at 4000 dpi): the scanner makes a high-pitched noise when scanning and then everything stops and I get the blinking light on the scanner. I have the impression than the slower steadier speed of Vuescan might work better.

I tried removing the Silverfast preferences, to no avail.

Just my experience, Horea

P.S I wrote technical support about the problem receiving only an automated response
 

edwardkaraa

New member
JCVG, beautiful portfolio by the way. Amazing work (and women) :D

:thumbs:

I've just bought an Epson V700 and it comes with Silverfast SE. But it won't work with Lion so I have downloaded the demo version of Silverfast 8 SE Plus. So far disappointed during the past 2 days I've tried it, crashed maybe 4 times, I have some very huge weird black stuffs all over the scan making them just totally useless (I'm not talking about the watermark)!

I wrote to the support and no response except an automatic email to say they are busy with the launch of the new software and it can take a while for them to respond...

First impression? Not that good and you should wait a bit as obviously this software is not ready. Beside if your version 6.x is working properly I don't think upgrading (especially at this price) is a good idea for a hundred scans. The problem though is that Silverfast 6.x won't run with Snow Leopard indeed.

Another option is Vuescan. It's "Lion ready" and actually it is FREE IF you move from Silverfast to Vuescan! You can't beat that and for one hundred scans per year I think it's a good alternative for the price! ;)

JC
 

JimCollum

Member
My second try at Silverfast 8 (i've been a user of Silverfast for almost a decade now. I was using v6 with the Nikon 5000ED scanner.. with absolutely fantastic results. They upgraded from 6 to 8.. had to dump their entire look & feel for the Mac (they used the older libraries that were no longer supported). Instead of taking a great product, and just converting it to Cocoa (new libraries).. they did what seems like a complete rewrite. Having had such great luck with the company and software, i automatically bought an upgrade.

mistake

big mistake

About a month of working with support..with a lot of please wait.. a fix is coming out any moment.. there was no resolution

some of the issues... automatic frame detection.. use of the roll film adapter for bulk scanning.. just didn't work

I finally asked for a refund and set up a VMware virtual PC and ran the older v6 under windows 7 in it.

Now.. a year later... i figure.. gotta be better now. Download the demo..and..

nope. It makes me sad.. what was the best (..luckily.. because it was almost the only) solution for scanning was no more. (Vuescan is a great single frame scanning app, but really doesn't work for batch scanning)

This may be different for other scanners.. flatbed, etc.. but if you're using Nikon.. they this just doesn't work

an additional note.. not there before, they did ad a film positioning tool inside of the 'overview' dialog... but for bulk scanning this is useless. you have to go to each frame, and adjust the frame positioning (36 times for each roll). Version 6 just found the frame beginning.. and if it didn't, you adjusted the first frame and it would find it for the rest.
 
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