LaserSoft Imaging

I recently bought an Artixscan 120tf scanner which came with both Silverfast AI and HDR software. I'm confused as to whether I should install just one or both of them. Is HDR an appendage to AI or can each be used independently with a scanner? Do I need to use AI to get the image from the scanner and then process it in HDR, or will HDR do the scanning and corrections all by itself? Under what conditions would I use one or the other?

My intention is to scan my film in 48-bit mode and do very minimal corrections in Silverfast before importing a profiled image file into Photoshop 6 (Mac OS 9.2), where I will do most of the image editing. Is the main advantage of HDR the ability to save a raw file and do the corrections later, or am I missing something? I can find no clear explanation of the differences between these two programs.

HDR is the 48 bit editor developed for Ai for processing high bit scans. It was developed before Photoshop developed some of its capabilities. i use both HDR and PS CS. THe advantage to using HDR imho is that the interface and tools are the same as Ai so there is little learning curve. THere is no reason that you cannot use PS CS to do most of the same things HDR does. HDR was developed to support scanning, PS for creative image creation and manipulation. i use Ai in HDR mode, make most of my edits in HDR and then clean up/rescale, etc in CS. Take a look a Ian Lyon's site for some excellent tutorials on how to use Ai, HDR, and Photoshop.

www.computer-darkroom.com

Frank

degrub wrote:HDR is the 48 bit editor developed for Ai for processing high bit scans. It was developed before Photoshop developed some of its capabilities. i use both HDR and PS CS. THe advantage to using HDR imho is that the interface and tools are the same as Ai so there is little learning curve. THere is no reason that you cannot use PS CS to do most of the same things HDR does. HDR was developed to support scanning, PS for creative image creation and manipulation. i use Ai in HDR mode, make most of my edits in HDR and then clean up/rescale, etc in CS. Take a look a Ian Lyon's site for some excellent tutorials on how to use Ai, HDR, and Photoshop.

www.computer-darkroom.com

Frank

hdr was developed to support scanning? no it does not support scanning if used alone. that is what is confusing. its a simple(sorry effective) editor, unable to scan!!!

Dear all.

HDR takes the images from files, Ai takes them from scanners directly.

HDR can be very helpful, when scanning large numbers of images like in the below workflow:
1. Use Ai to scan images from your scanner and save them as 16-bit images to files. The entire dynamic range is saved in these files. You only need to scan each image once, since you don?t make any changes to the images.
2. Open the files in HDR and manipulate them. Since you don?t need your scanner at this time, it can be used for other tasks now. Opening of the images in HDR is very fast, because the images contain HiRepp information. You can use the JobManager to manipulate many files in one batch.

In addition, HDR offers the VLT, which is an image administration. Files can be sorted and located into different albums. The VLT also supports IPTC.

Best regards.
Eric Flyvbjerg

lasersoft is improving all the time.... we only have to help them! thank you for this clear instruction. why not from the beginning? right on top of your page-instead of other gimmicks. a better structure could help us all.

europanorama wrote:lasersoft is improving all the time.... we only have to help them! thank you for this clear instruction. why not from the beginning? right on top of your page-instead of other gimmicks. a better structure could help us all.

ai and hdr should be just beside eachother and not on left and right side. they belong together for all photographers, above all those not yet having digital cameras.