Nice. The VueScan image appears to have a blue color-cast, which is typical of uncalibrated Kodachrome scans. Did you configure it for a Kodachrome scan?
I’m quite surprised at the quality of the EpsonScan image.
Thanks for that link. Especially the test-scan of the stopwatch. I am surprised that the CIS scanner couldn’t focus on the watch face, which the article says is less than 2mm above the glass.
I did select Kodachrome on one of them, but cannot remember which now. I want to get Vuescan setup on that machine and do it again, paying more attention to the settings.
Thank you Richard. It is beginning to seem like a major task - I may wait until summer arrives and I have to live in the AC all day so I have time lol. Appreciate your step by step. I’m looking toward the V600 but not sure where I could put it. Fascinating discussion. Again, appreciate your detailed guidance! - Doug
Nope. They were scanned at 2400 dpi, the max my scanner would produce. I guess that’s just as good as it gets. I compared the original, backlit through a 8x lupe, to my scans from 15 years ago, and to fresh ones from today. The old ones actually looked better than the new ones! But I may have done some post-processing on them, and I just used VueScan’s default settings, so possibly not a fair comparison. Neither was as sharp as the original, however.
I know there was some mention of software earlier, but FWIW: Epson no longer supports the 2400 (no great surprise) in terms of scanning software, hence the use of VueScan.
That wrinkle removal is amazing. It drove me to go to the epson site and download drivers for the two potential systems I can connect the V600 to (sierra and catalina), because I also finally figured out that I bought my V600 in 2013, when I was still using snow leopard. They also have the full manual available, in html and pdf.
The driver site is quite nice, you select which OS you want and it shows you all the relevant files and tells which OS versions they work with. For Mojave up, the epson drivers can’t do ICE, but they’ve made Silverfast SE available for free if you feed it the V600 serial number. If I ever manage to extract mine from the closet and get the magic number, I’ll give that a whirl.
silverfast on sierra: I doubt it, since epson’s not likely to want to pay licensing fees if it isn’t absolutely necessary. You should download and register it anyway though, so you’ll already have it in case it vanishes by the time you move to one of newer OSes. But presumably we can keep running the older software in a Sierra VM, too.
I’m just hoping that it covers 9 year old scanner models because even if I like it better than epson or vuescan there’s no way I’d buy a regular silverfast license, all of which seem to be locked to particular hardware models.
Still trying to figure out where I can put the beast. Maybe I can hang it from the ceiling?
Epson Scan 2 is in the mojave+ sections, and it needs mojave or later. You’ll need to download the epson drivers from the sierra compatible page, which is dated 10/13/14. If that doesn’t work, something is amiss somewhere.
I managed to find my serial number without excavating the closet, and it was accepted! so I downloaded silverscan se 8.8. They gave me an activation key, but in a different page they say you have to create an account and don’t need a key. Hopefully the key will work if I ever get that far; I don’t need yet more accounts.
Turns out that it doesn’t actually do ICE. I missed reading all of the words on the epson driver page–“This software includes iSRD®, an Infrared Dust and Scratch Removal tool that you can use in lieu of Digital ICE”. This seems to be a silverfast proprietary thing, presumably it will still work well enough since the basic techniques have now been around for a long time. If not, sierra to the rescue?
It looks like silverfast might run on sierra though maybe not iSDR. I won’t install it or the epson drivers until there’s a scanner to connect to though; there’s already enough cruft on my systems. I did extract the pdfs from the documentation installer package*. Maybe looking through the manual will have something enticing enough to prod me into getting all set up.
*Using Suspicious Package; I always peek at installer packages with SP to see what they’re up to. The doc installer is very simple but wants to put everything in /Users/Shared/ which is a tad odd. The software installer puts their prefs, samples, etc. in Shared as well.
Weird things today, I was determined to get Vuescan registered on that machine and scan in some very old 110 b&w negatives.
Vuescan had been working in demo mode and immediately recognized the V600 when I opened it.
But when I got my registration info squared away, it suddenly said I needed a driver to use the V600 and indeed I couldn’t even see it anymore. So I had to install the driver and reboot.
Then going back into one of the 2 programs, it asked if I wanted to use TWAIN or something else. (sorry I can’t remember, that was over 12 hours ago)
I had not installed the drivers until today, but everything was working before Vuescan was registered. I’ll check and see what year the files on the CD are.
Ok - that said, neither program does 110 negatives well in multi mode. I was able to get a more satisfactory output from Epson on those, but I had to manually select and scan each negative in the strip. Thankfully I don’t have many of those.
FWIW, I’m running 8.8 on Big Sur. I got a very old version free with my scanner. I purchased version 6. When I upgraded my Mac from PowerPC to Intel, I bought version 8 and have been installing free upgrades through 8.8 since then). I plan to buy 9 at some point in the future.
That’s correct. ICE is a specific algorithm for using infrared to remove dust/scratches. SilverFast switched from it to iSRD (their own IR-based system) many years ago. They say it’s better, but I’ve never run any tests, so I can’t verify that claim.
Version 8 should just run just fine on Sierra, even with iSRD. But you won’t be able to run it until your scanner is connected and powered-on. It checks for the presence of compatible hardware and won’t launch if it’s not available.
I started to tag some of my fathers old scans before importing them into Photos (date, place, names etc.). I found Graphic Converter to be the best option of the software I had available (possible to make batch tagging). Any other recommendations from you?
Tagging can be done in Photos. Select a bunch of images from the lightbox display then do a Command-I (get Info). A panel will open up allowing you to enter Title, Description and Keywords into all the images in the selected group. You can’t change the date but that is easily entered into the description field.
I use Photos now as my DAM after having spent quite a lot of money over the years on commercial products. At first I hated Photos, regarding it as inferior to iPhoto. However, the more I use it (now many thousand images) the more I appreciate its talents.
Just be aware, that I’m fairly certain Photos doesn’t write any of those tags (or adjusted dates) into the files themselves. So if you export the originals at a later date (or import into another app?), I’m not sure they will include any date adjustments or keywords/description, etc. At a minimum, I would do some tests first using GraphicConverter (or even Preview) to verify what metadata is included when you export originals from Photos.
Just tried dragging an image to the desktop. Only the file title travelled.
Using export on the same image (checking the correct checks in the export dialogue) and the info I need travelled - including location, title, keywords and description.
When you exported, did you export the original or a version? Which the standard export, Photos re-compresses the file, baking in any image and metadata edits you’ve made. But if you ever want to move the original file elsewhere (to preserve full quality and avoid re-compressing), you have to use the export original command, and I don’t think that will include any metadata edits you’ve made. I could be wrong (am on my phone, so can’t check).
What Jolin says is true. However, after exporting the originals, you could edit the metadata in another program. For example, Graphic Converter allows quite extensive metadata edits (including dates), but only in Browser Mode (so that it doesn’t actually make any changes to the image).
Agreed, though if scanning slides or negatives, my preference would be to set the dates in GraphicConverter before importing into Photos. That way the original/master has an appropriate date right from the start.
I spent the last two days scanning 7 boxes of slides using the Epson V600 and the older Epson software, on professional mode. I know two days sounds like a lot but I wasn’t sitting over it, rather I let it work behind me as I was working.
It’s a little more hands on than negatives as you can only load 4 slides at a time.
Mine were a mix of Kodachrome, Etchachrome and one box that I have no idea about, except they were taken in 4 varied conditions over the span of 4 months in the early 80s (inside December and April, outside in the snow (grey) and outside in the spring (sunny). The box says Kodak but the slides are only stamped with the month and no other info. Those I did have to separate based on the time frames because if I did a preview with an inside pic and a snow day pic, one of them would not come out. If I kept like with like, they worked well.
I still have the issue where the software hangs up between sides, and even starting Preview mode, unless I move the mouse. If I leave it alone it will finish but takes much longer.
I have tried Vuescan a couple of times but I can’t get it to easily separate the slides even though I’ve used the multi function and selected 35mm slides. I have to do so much manual crop adjusting that I gave up. Epson Scan is pretty seamless at picking up the amount of slides or negatives.
The only type it has failed on so far are slides from a 110 camera, those I do have to move the selection to each negative individually.
