SilverFast 8 - Mac OS X - drivers

[theprincereturns]

I am having the scan speed issue on Windows 7 64 bit as well (I have 8GB ram so that isn't an issue)! I am running Silverfast 8 with the 4.2.0.1 drivers from Plustek. Things were fine for a while than the 3600 dpi scans (with iSDR) went from ~3 min to well over 10 min and it appeared that it was scanning at the 7200 dpi speed.

I tried uninstalling drivers and silverfast to no avail (afterwords i noticed that silverfast was not deleting preferences on uninstall). I finally went into the service dialog on starting silverfast and did a software reset and remove scanner preferences. This cleared the issue. So to me that implies that this is a silverfast settings issue where something internally is getting stuck. Anyway I at least have a work around for now if it happens again.

I am having a ton of trouble getting detail out of the shadows in Kodachrome slides in particular - much more than I was expecting. I have not tried silverfast 6 to see if that makes a difference yet though.

[pettypi]

I am also having this problem. Optifilm 7600, SE Plus 8, OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.8, 4 GB Macbook Pro. Another clue...if I load one of the slow-scanned images into HDR Studio 8 beta, the infrared portion is not lined up properly, it seems to be shifted about 50 pixels down for a 3600 ppi scan.

[LSI_Morales]

Hi Pettypi

Thanks for informing us. Would it be possible for you to provide two files illustrating this (one with the normal speed and one with the slow-scan and the offset IR-channel)? You can send us the dropbox link to download the pictures.

We appreciate your cooperation here.

Kind regards

[picree]

OK, this thread has almost 1,300 views. That should indicate a problem. The following configuration has issues (feels like it is a driver issue). Like many who have posted above:

1) I cannot do more than one scan without the scanner switching into some kind of "taking forever" mode.
2) Many times the second scan locks up SilverFast and I have to kill it. Restarting results in the "taking forever" mode.
2) No matter what resolution I select the output is 72 dpi. A 3600 dpi slide scan formated to 4 x 6 output should give about 780 dpi. Of course the canvas size is not respected.
3) Sometimes (seems random) the output will say 72 dpi and zooming in with Pixelmator will show fine detail. Other times the output will say 72 dpi but zooming in to the same magnification will show jaggies. Post scan manipulation in Pixelmator can fix the dpi and canvas size problem. Sometimes that fixes the jaggies...sometimes not.
4) The file sizes are about twice what they should be for the resolution.
5) I've tried to run SF in both 64-bit and 32-bit mode. No joy.

To say SF can run on Lion is not true (not yet anyways)...disingenuous. Hopefully SF is on this. This is not a user issue.

OS X 10.7.3 Lion
SilverFast SE Plus 8.0.1r5
Plustek OpticFilm 7600i
iMac 27-inch, Mid 2011
16 GB ram
AMD Radeon HD 6970M 2GB ram
Trying to scan Kodachrome at 3600 dpi

[picree]

Some testing indicates this is a SilverFast issue and not a Plustek driver issue. Once SilverFast is installed it installs a driver for the Plustek (see my configuration above). Once that driver is installed you can go back and actually use v**s**n in Lion OS X. Using v**s**n with the Plustek driver yields expected results. There are no slow scans. Canvas size is respected. Resolution is respected. And limited testing indicates no lockups or crashing.

SilverFast needs to update their software. It is NOT Lion compatible! ...eventhough it is being marketed as such. I prefer SilverFast though since the IR dust & scratch removal algorithm is more adjustable than v**s**n.

[picree]

Oh-and the filesize is as expected for a 3600 dpi slide scan. SilverFast results in about 50MB not the typical 25MB. When using v**s**n as mentioned above it comes out as expected at 25MB.

[marmot]

I'm also having some of the above-mentioned problems:

1. Almost every other single-exposure scan is a "slow scan", which produces an overexposed result (when compared with the pre-scan)

2. After I cancel out of a slow scan, SF will often lock up, requiring a force quit.

3. On ME scans, I see stair-stepping on the image when I zoom in to 100%. There are also odd green artifacts on parts of the image. ME is basically unusable for me since these problems occur on every ME scan I've tried.

4. On several consecutive scans, SF went through the scan procedure but not the processing or saving steps, so no file was saved!

My configuration:

MacBook Pro 2.93 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3
Mac OSX 10.7.3
SF 8.0.1r6 (updated version, downloaded 11 Mar 2012)
PlusTek 7600i

[LSI_Morales]

Hi marmot

We have been able to reproduce this issues during our tests.
The issues described here appear to be more driver related than created by SilverFast.

Kind regards

[marmot]

Alejandro-

Are these issues addressed in the new update? I ask because I'm still getting the slow scans.

Today I uninstalled my previous version of SF, made sure the old drivers were gone from the Library/Frameworks folder, then reinstalled the updated version 8.0.1r7. I just tested the software and got "slow" scans on 6 out of 7 attempts.

[LSI_Morales]

Hi marmot,

This is issues are not related to SilverFast itself but the framework instead. The framework is programmed by the scanner manufacturer, we are still waiting for their reaction.

Kind regards

[stallonecuts]

Hey Alejandro,

If it is the framework, there are two manufacturers with this framework issue. I am scanning with an Epson V750 Pro and SF 6.6 with the same results. Please see my earlier post on this thread.

Is this the same issue or something entirely different?

Thanks!

[curnop]

Hi, I'm also having problems with Silverfast 8 slowing down and exposure errors using the Plustek 7600i.
This has only started to happen after upgrading to Silver fast 8 from 6.6 and is becoming very annoying.
I'm scanning Kodak BW400CN film at 3600 ppi and the problem is very intermittent. First 8 scans were quick and easy and I was able to adjust exposure on the preview and the scan came out as expected.
Then the 9th scan was unbelievably slow and the exposure adjustments I had made were ignored resulting in a unusable under exposed image. I'm sure the Tiffs were never 50mb also.

Please help!

Regards,
Pete

[LSI_Morales]

Hi there

If it is the framework, there are two manufacturers with this framework issue. I am scanning with an Epson V750 Pro and SF 6.6 with the same results. Please see my earlier post on this thread.

Is this the same issue or something entirely different?

This is a different thing, although the effect appears to be similar, there is a different cause for this. Have you tried updating your driver and SilverFast? We have been working on memory management enhancement which might have solve the issue related to the Epson Perfection V750 (not the issues with the Plustek which are directly related to manufacturers framework).

Cheers

[LSI_Morales]

Hi Curnop

As I mentioned above

This is issues are not related to SilverFast itself but the framework instead. The framework is programmed by the scanner manufacturer, we are still waiting for their reaction.

As soon as we have new frameworks available from the scanning manufacturer correcting this kind of issues, we will implement them and offer them to all our community of users.

Thanks for your patience and understanding

Kind regards

[vofl3450]

HI, I am also having serious problems with SilverFast 8 SE and Opticfilm 7300.

Examples: Prescan can't deliver same result two following times and final scan often wildly over-expose and reacting "randomly" upon my adjustment settings - same behaviour at 32 and 64 bit.

LSI_Morales wrote:

This is issues are not related to SilverFast itself but the framework instead. The framework is programmed by the scanner manufacturer, ...

This in mention I succeded with the following workaround:

Reinstalled the most recent 10.oct.2011 Plustek Frameworks: Looked into log file: /var/log/install.log to see, where the framework is installed. Result: /Library/Frameworks (folder).

Deleted the 7300/7400/7500/7600 Frameworks - 4 folders

Reinstalled the folders from my own 3 days older backup via Time Machine (because Plustek did not offer them).

Set Silverfast 8 to run in 32 bit mode: get info on /Applications/SilverFast Application/SilverFast 8/SilverFast 8.app - checkbox in info's general section

In Silverfast 8 preferences check general/Show image after scan to let the scanned image automatically open in Photoshop

obs.: My new workflow starts in Silverfast 8 instead of Photoshop. Easy to learn and remember!

Tree errors in Silverfast 8 SE 8.0.1r7:

Photoshop Plugin i386 unexpectedly call Silverfast 64 bit - means my workaround does not work when initiated from Photoshop as the old Plustek Framework is 32 bit only.

Silverfast 8 forget the setting of "scan-dimension/file"-type when closing - I would like to have jpeg as primary scan result!

When scanning low dpi the Gane function distort the resulting scan image.

Details: iMac 27" medio 2011 (Intel Core i5/8GB/256GB SSD). Mac OS X 10.7.3 Lion. Photoshop CS5 12.0.4. Plustek Opticfilm 7300. Silverfast SE 8.0.1r7