LaserSoft Imaging

the Frame Set popup menu includes an Import item but I've found no mention of it on the site or in the manuals. how do I use it?

I've created a frame-set made up of multiple frames in the same place with varying Descreening densities. this frame set allows me to conveniently sample the densities for the document I'm scanning and choose the optimum density (which by the way is usually around double the actual screen density of the document).

I want to export this frame set for safety sake so that it's always available even if the SF preferences are corrupted or lost.

how do I use the Frame Set Import command?

regards
Gregory

Dear Gregory

until now the frames are saved within the prefs (which is why clicking the import button opens a file dialogue for .prf files).

Thus you might want to copy your prefs to a save place for later recoverance.

Still though, we might want to put separate settings into separate files in future versions of SilverFast. Does this sound interesting?

it would be very convenient although not absolutely necessary if we know that we can copy pref files to other locations for safety sake and import from them whenever we need.

the inconveniences of the current Pref/Import system are:

1. pref files are not saved or updated until SF is Quit. I've heard SF employees say that prefs are updated as soon as a scan commences but my Settings and Frames have never been saved until I quit SF. to save pref sets for future Import access, we need to quit SF to make sure that our settings have been saved into the prefs file. quitting an app is never convenient and almost never having to quit an app is one of the reasons we use OS X.

2. the Import function does not allow the user to select which setting to import. if my pref file has 3 frame sets, selecting Import will import all three sets.

3. when sets are imported, they are imported with the unique serial numbers used to distinguish them internally in the prefs file. it would be better to import them without the serial number. if a setting already exists with the same name, the user would be prompted to rename the new setting or replace the old setting.

4. when the Import dialog appears after clicking Import, there is no indication that SF is looking for prf files. I was only able to discover the type of file that SF wanted by trial and error.

5. last one. the Import function is not mentioned in any of SF's manuals or on the SF site. it's a potentially powerful function. it should be documented. documentation (or messages on this forum) suggest that frame settings can be imported from Expert-dialog-exported statistics files. this is wrong and the explanation should perhaps be reworded to avoid confusion.


take care
Gregory

Dear Gregory

thanks again for your valuable comments on SilverFast behaviour.

As suggested, the frames will be saved to some specific file in a version to come which will solve part of this issue(s).

(1) I was unable to verify who said what, but I could verify this:
Starting a DC Pro 6.2.1r5 generating and saving some frames. The option is immediately effective.
Still, when I now start e.g. HDR 6.2.1r9 and import the frames from DC Pro, they aren't to be found. Only when I close down DC Pro, I can import and use the frames generated in DC Pro in my HDR, too.

(2) Is correct. SilverFast does behave this way. A more powerful import function might be helpful - I guess we agree on that

(3) If SilverFast you behave as proposed, it might overwrite a given frame setting of the same name. Of course, (2) would be the best solution again...

(4) Well, the import dialogue opens with a file type selection of "SilverFast preferences" in a folder which only has ".prf" files in it.
I guess this isn't to hard to guess - of course a notion of "SilverFast preferences (.prf)" would be somewhat more self-explaining.

(5) I will ask our senior document manager to check this out.

Thank you for pointing these hassles out. This does help us to to further improve the SilverFast scanning software, thereby delivering best value to all users.

Kind regards
Sonny Noack

what happens when you import a setting from a pref for another version of SF? for example, can I import Frame or Negafix settings from SF Ai NikonM into SF HDR?

As long as the version are compatible this should work.

If the format had been changed, SilverFast can be expected to be able to change the data to the new format.
However, this won't work (correctly) when transferring prefs data from a newer to an older version, of course.