Is Silverfast for me?

[Martin_Havelka]

Hi,

I have an Epson Perfection 1240 Photo and use it only privately. Mostly I scan photographs and some other things I find useful to make textures (for 3D) with.
I wonder if I could profit from Silverfast or if it is only useful for print or other proffessionals.
I also have another question; what is an it8 color calibration? I know it calibrates your scanner, but why do I need that? Also what is an ICC profile?

Martin Havelka

[ianders1]

Martin,

Glad to see you're interested in Silverfast, it's a great product. I've got an Epson Expression 1600, and I can tell you that Silverfast blows away Epson's TWAIN Pro. If I were you, I'd download the demo first, and play around with it. It's not the simplest software package to learn, but Ian Lyons has some great tutorials at:

http://www.computer-darkroom.com

Just give it a chance. You'll definitely get better scans with it than Epson's software. If you have any questions or problems, post them here, and we'll do our best to answer them.

As for IT8, it's a small film or piece of paper that you scan in, that allows you to to calibrate your scanner to get better color and shadow-detail. You can learn more about it here:

http://www.silverfast.com/english/silve ... s/it8.html

My advice is to go ahead and shell out the extra cash if you've got it. It doesn't look like it makes much of a difference in the examples, but it makes a big difference when you actually use it. If you're scanning both film and documents, you'll need to ask them for both targets, which is a little bit more. If you're mainly interested in film, just buy the IT8 transparency target, and you can always buy the reflective one later.

Hope this helps,

Ian A.