Charles Moore Reviews VueScan 8.4.21 Scanner Software For Flatbed & Film Scanners
However, VueScan has evolved substantially over the past three years, and it certainly was getting overdue for a fresh check-out, so this month I downloaded the latest, version 8.4 and put it through its paces.
The first thing I noticed was that the version 8.4 user interface is much, much nicer than the VueScan 7.x and even earlier the version 8.x builds I have been using. There was nothing really "wrong" with the older interfaces; they were functional and intuitive and did the job quite nicely and efficiently. They just weren't very visually arresting. To say that the looks have improved with version 8.4 would be an understatement. VueScan is now extremely hourglass graphic that's presented while processes are in progress.
There is also now a highly automated mode for users who just want to do simple, low- hassle scans letting VueScan make all the decisions about cropping and scan configuration.
VueScan 8.4 is now Universal Binary, and the developer, Hamrick Software, says it up to three times faster for many operations, and now supports very high resolution scans that exceed the capacity of older 32-bit software, and claims to be the only scanning application available that can do this.
"Today's scanners are capable of very high resolutions - 4800 dpi and beyond. All other scanner programs are limited to scan sizes of 2 GBytes, which makes it impossible to make high resolution scans of larger film sizes," says Ed Hamrick, President of Hamrick Software. "VueScan has now broken this 32-bit barrier, allowing full use of scanners that can produce more than 2 GBytes of scanner data. For instance, this allows a new level of realism when scanning 4x5 inch film at 6400 dpi, producing 6 GBytes of image data. This new level of realism exceeds the resolution of any digital camera by at least a factor of 100."
VueScan is claimed to be the most popular scanner software in the world with a customer base of over 130,000, and once you try it, you'll understand why. It works with many types of scanners, is easy, even fun to use, and doesn't cost a whole lot. Not only that, VueScan is one of the most actively developed pieces of Mac software (also works with Linux and Windows), with frequent version updates keeping it abreast of the latest new hardware innovations and refining its performance. In the two weeks or so I've spent preparing this review, I've downloaded three version updates. I've heard some users complain about the rapid pace of VueScan updates, but really, folks, you don't have to update if it doesn't suit you. My old copy of VueScan 7.6 still works just fine. However, the program's developers do try to keep it current with new scanners on the market and to constantly improve VueScan.
Analogically, VueScan reminds me a bit of Tex Edit Plus, which is my favorite Mac OS X application. Both VueScan and Tex Edit are products of an individual, independent developer who has concentrated on designing and continuously refining a product with an emphasis on no-nonsense functionality
VueScan works with most high-quality flatbed and film scanners to produce scans that have excellent color fidelity and color balance, is easy to use, relatively inexpensive, and has advanced features for restoring faded colors, batch scanning and other features used by professional photographers. VueScan also incorporates an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) module for converting hard copy text to editable text. VueScan works with prints, slides or negatives.
Start up VueScan, and it will identify and configure itself for your scanner. Press the "Preview" button and the scanner will preview your image, which will appear in the right hand pane of the VueScan interface window after Vuescan processes the scanned data. A text readout in the bottom field of the interface window keeps you apprised of scanning and processing progress. Once the preview image appears, you can use the crop box to specify the desired crop for your actual scan.
As noted above, you can just leave VueScan in its automated mode and let it do its thing, which it does very well, or click the "Advanced" button, and provide yourself with an array of scan configuration options.
For example, if the colors don't look quite true in the preview, try Control-clicking on an area of the image that should be gray. To reset to the automatic color balance setting, Control double-click on the image. If the lighting in the scene is unusual (i.e. at sunset or with stage lighting), try setting "Color/Color balance" to "Neutral".
When everything is to your liking, press the "Scan" button, and the scanner will do its stuff, and after another processing interval, a scan of the image will appear in the window. Click "Save" to save it to your hard drive or open it in an image editing/viewing application. VueScan can save scanned images as JPEG files (by default) or TIFF files (optionally). You can also copy and paste scans to image editing apps. via the Clipboard.
VueScan lets you change options in the tabbed panels on the left side of the interface window and displays images and histograms on the right side of the window. The bottom left corner of the window gives instructions for the chosen task and the bottom right corner of the window shows the dimensions of the image that will be written if you press the Scan button. Other commands are available in the menu bar, and the most commonly used commands are available as buttons at the bottom of the window. A vast number of settings and adjustments are supported by the various menus and entry fields. VueScan keeps you informed as to what it's doing with text readouts at the bottom of the interface window.
The preview window is primarily used to show the cropping that the automatic cropping has selected and to let you change cropping if necessary. It's also used to give you a rough idea of what the color and contrast will look like in the final scan. The scan window shows the cropped image that can be written to a file or printed.
Vuescan is a pure scanning application and doesn't have any post-scan image editing functions, what no TWAIN or Plug-in interface support, so you must do your scanning from the VueScan application and then transfer it to an image editor for any final tweaking, but you can configure your favorite image editing program to automatically open each image when a scan completes. Use the "Prefs/External viewer" option to configure.
Vuescan does color-correct scans from photographic images by referencing profiles for over 200 different types of color negative film and four types of slide film, and can also color-correct raw data based on profiles for your particular scanner, as well as allowing for a wide range of manual adjustments, and VueScan is engineered for crop and white-balance accuracy to minimize the amount of manual post-scan adjustment necessary, which will be especially appreciated when scanning batches of images using the "Input|Batch scan" option.
VueScan supports various processing algorithms such as dust removal, grain reduction, color restoration, and sharpening. If you're using a Minolta Dimage Scan Elite 5400 film scanner, you can select the Grain Dissolver option, which causes a translucent material to be inserted in the light path to make the light source more diffuse, slightly reducing the appearance of film grain at the cost of longer scan times. VueScan supports a scanner's hardware features such as batch scanning, auto-focus, infrared channels for dust and scratch removal, and multi-scan to pull the full bit depth of data from dark areas of slides.
Here are some examples of how you can clean up and restore slides using VueScan's Filter tools (these next shots were taken from my "discards" archives), meaning that they had problems from the get-go, and they haven't improved with age. Here is a shot of my old 1953 Ford F200, taken c. 1976. As you can see, the old slide is a bit fuzzy, there are a few dust flecks, and the color has shifted toward a reddish cast.
After applying VueScan's Infrared Clean (Heavy), Restore colors, Grain reduction, and Sharpen options in the Filter tab, the photo cleaned up quite nicely. The trees in the background now look green again instead of purple, and the dust flecks are diminished. If you don't like the result from applying some of these filters, you can immediately reverse it.
I imported the filtered image into Photoshop Elements to see if it could be further improved upon, but all I ended up doing after some experimentation was increasing the color saturation by 18%, and I'm not sure it's a significant improvement. VueScan pretty much got it right the first time.
This shot of my son's '79 Chrysler Cordoba didn't need sharpening, but the color had begun to shift and the slide was very dirty (dust shows up particularly badly in the background mist and on the car's engine bonnet.
After the VueScan filters did their thing, here's the result. Upon checking in Photoshop Elements, I found no further adjustments that improved on VueScan's work.
You can do some pretty amazing stuff with these tools. For example, here is a scan of a 30 year old slide taken with (I think) GAF slide film, that is badly faded and color-shifted, as well as having dust spots. It looks pretty grotty, but it's a shot I'd like to save because it shows what the view from my front yard looked like in the early '70s before there were power poles and telephone lines, and a lot of tree growth that's there now.
Using the digital correction functions in the Minolta Dimage Elite 5400 scanner and a bit of touch-up in Photoshop Elements, I was able to salvage quite an acceptable image from that old slide.
Here's another shot taken out the windscreen of my MGB on a tour through upstate New York in the mid-'70s, also on the now long-discontinued GAF transparency film. There was plenty of color, but with a slightly odd cast, and blocked-up contrast, and there were dust flecks in the light areas.
Here's what the image looked like after scanner enhancing. I like the result so much that I'm currently using it for a desktop picture on my iBook.
You can save raw data to a file so you won't have to rescan the original to make subsequent copies, and VueScan also has preliminary support for raw scan files from certain models of digital cameras.
Vuescan works to scan photographic prints and other hard copy documents, transparencies, and negative film - color or black & white. VueScan, combined with a scanner, image editing software (I use Color It! 4.5 ToyViewer, and Photoshop Elements 4 mostly.
Being able to scan slides and negatives is extremely cool, especially for folks like me who have an archive of photographic output extending back over several decades. I could spend literally months with this electronic "darkroom" working with my library of slides and negatives. I also found that VueScan did a fine job scanning magazine and book pages and hard copy prints.
I was also gratified by the accuracy of VueScan's Optical Character Recognition. Since OCR is a bit of a sideline for VueScan, my expectations were modest, but it pleasantly surprised me, being quick and easy to use. Just select "text" as your input mode, and away you go.
You can improve your Optical Character Recognition (OCR) results if you download a dictionary containing common US English, French, Dutch and UK English words. Put this file (vuedict.dat) in the same directory as the VueScan program. You can choose the language using the "Output|OCR text language" option.
VueScan will work with an astonishing variety of scanners (more than 400) - flatbed or film types. Unlike the generally consumer-oriented scanning software that usually comes bundled with scanners, Vuescan is targeted primarily at intermediate to advanced users who are more interested in getting the job done with a minimum of hassle and distraction, and there are no annoying helper "wizards" and "assistants." VueScan can also be a lifesaver (or at least a scanner-saver) if drivers are no longer available to support your scanner's software after you upgrade to a new computer or new Operating System version.
I tested VueScan with both an EPSON Perfection 4870 Photo combo flatbed and film scanner and a Minolta DiMage Elite 5400 film scanner with my 700 MHz G3 iBook and my 550 MHz G4-upgraded Pismo PowerBook, both with 640 MB of RAM and running OS 10.3.2. You can never have too much processor power for working with graphics, and neither of these machines can be considered ideal for serious production scanning and image editing, but I found VueScan satisfyingly quick on both, so you can imagine what it will be like on a Core 2 Duo or even faster G4 or G5.
VueScan changes nothing on your system, installs nothing in your operating system and all other scanner software will continue to function. The VueScan User's Guide is available in PDF or HTML format.
You can check out VueScan for compatibility with your scanner setup before committing any cash. The demo of Vuescan it is fully functional, but places $$ watermarks on your saved scans until you pay the license fee and receive a serial number.
In general, however, I've found that VueScan lives up to its claims, and is a powerful and pleasant, even fun to use piece of software. If you're serious about scanning, it's well worth downloading a demo copy to try out.
If you want to learn more about using Vuescan, The VueScan Getting Started Guide (downloadable in PDF from the Hamrick Software homepage) should help new users get up to speed with VueScan more conveniently than perusing the excellent but prolix and unillustrated online VueScan manual. The screenshots are all in Windows format, but still help get the ideas across for Mac users.
VueScan developer Ed Hamrick graduated from CalTech with a degree in Engineering and Applied Science, and then worked at Boeing for 10 years in a variety of software and engineering roles. Ed went on to work for seven years for Convex Computer Corporation, an air-cooled supercomputer manufacturer, in pre-sales engineering. He founded Hamrick Software in 1991 after realizing that one of the main uses of personal computers was working with images. In 1997, Hamrick Software released VueScan, and it has been continuously upgraded and improved since then.
For a detailed listing of VueScan features see:
http://www.hamrick.com/abo.html
The list of supported scanners is available here:
http://www.hamrick.com/vuescan/vuescan.htm#supported
The list of supported digital camera RAW files is available here:
http://www.hamrick.com/vuescan/vuescan.htm#rawfiles
New in version 8.4.21:
• Improved scan speed with:
° Avision scanners
° Fujitsu document scanners
° HP ScanJet 8200
° Kodak document scanners
° Minolta film scanners (USB 2.0)
° QMS document scanners
° Visioneer document scanners
° Xerox document scanners
New in version Version 8.4.20:
• Fixed problems with PIE PowerSlide and Reflecta Digitia
• Improved support for Epson document feeders
New in version 8.4.19:
• Improved VueScan User's Guide
• Fixed problem with black/white scans on HP ScanJet 5300
• Fixed problem with some older Minolta film scanners
• Fixed problem with Nikon LS-20/LS-1000
• Added support for Epson CX6900F/CX7000F/DX7000F
• Added support for 2400 dpi on Epson CX7700
System requirements:
• Mac OS X 10.2.8 or higher
• Supported scanner
Version 7.6 for Mac OS Classic still available here:
http://www.hamrick.com/files/vueos976.sit
System support:
PPC/Intel
VueScan is available in two editions, Standard Edition ($39.95 USD) and Professional Edition ($79.95). The Professional Edition adds unlimited free upgrades, advanced IT8 color calibration and support for raw scan files.
Multi-user licenses are available. A fully functional, trial copy of VueScan can be downloaded from:
http://www.hamrick.com/
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Charles W. Moore
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