Kodachrome

[Roger Jones]

SilverFast 5.5 (20 December 2001 release) on Windows 98SE

With SilverFast 4 and my Nikon LS-2000, I used to get good scans out of all transparencies, not noticing the difference between Kodachrome and the rest. SilverFast 4 also seemed to cohabit happily with Nikon Scan, not that I used the latter much at all.

Then I replaced the LS-2000 with the Super Coolscan 4000 ED and SilverFast 5. I installed the scanner with the Nikon software and then installed SilverFast.

Everything was fine for a while, until I used Nikon Scan's Kodachrome option, which seemed to throw SilverFast completely out of synch. So, advised by LaserSoft tech support and following instructions on this site, I uninstalled both SilverFast and Nikon Scan 3, and reinstalled SilverFast. Result, eveything but Kodachrome scans fine; the scans of Kodachrome are blurred, not catastrophically blurred, but blurred enough to be unusable.

Now, I know that the structure of Kodachrome differs fundamentally from E6. What puzzles me is why I used to get good scans and now I can't. And I would like to know whether the SilverFast folks anticipate a solution to this serious mission-limiting problem or whether it just ain't possible. I can hardly ask my authors to go out and do all their Kodachrome shots again.

Furthermore, the limitations and naff interface of Nikon Scan notwithstanding, in view of its Kodachrome option it is very frustrating to be denied access to it because of the apparent incompatibility between it and SilverFast.

I would appreciate the views of others and some hard information from LaserSoft folk.

[Andreas]

The problem should be gone if you turn ICE off. The use of ICE with Kodackrome results in ugly artefacts, sometimes nore, sometimes less.

Bye

Andreas