Nikon 9000 installation and batch scan problems
PostPosted: Sun Apr 13, 2014 7:13 pm
I recently acquired a Nikon 9000ED and Silverfast 8. I'm trying to set up a workflow for converting thousands of old negatives (color, chromogenic, and b&w) into digital negatives for further processing later on. Since the scanner takes about two hours to do 12 frames, I need a batch process that can be run in the background as I attend to other tasks and chip away at processing the digital negatives to positives on a separate schedule.
For doing the initial scans to a digital negative, the scanner is hooked up through a FireWire PCMCIA adapter to an old Lenovo T60 running Windows XP. For processing to positives, I have SF8 HDR Studio running on a current laptop with 64 bit Windows 7. Studio seems to be working OK, but I have had nothing but trouble with the 9000/XP setup.
After many days of stuggling with SP8/XP, I finally got the process to limp along, more or less, using the Overview function -- not a good batch process, but it was working. Then I reinstalled XP to bring it up to SP3 before the recent termination of support, and now the SP8 interface seems to work more straighforwardly, but whenever I try to use Overview, the scanner goes through all 12 frames and then the program crashes.
One obvious answer would be to use the ADF function, but though the Silverfast 8 marketing materials extol the benefits of using the ADF setting with the Nikon 9000, there is no ADF button in the GUI I get when I install it. From this I'm guessing that the wrong driver may be installed, or the right driver may be installed incorrectly.
An alternative would be to use SF6.6 on the XP machine. I tried this, and it seemed to install much better, but how to set up a pure "raw capture" batch mode seems rather mysterious, and I can't find any instructions on how to perform what one would think to be the most basic function of a film scanner, namely, getting as much raw data from the negative into digital form with as little hassle as possible. Everything seems to be set up for someone who is going to be working with negatives one frame at a time and is going to optimize the positive version of each frame before going on to the next one -- not a good approach for bringing thousands of frames into a baseline digital form before they begin to deteriorate. The book that's sold along with SF8, and which I'm sorry I spent the money on, is badly written and filled with nonsense about the relationship between print sizes and resolution (as if I already knew what print sizes I might want and was going to all this trouble for any less resolution than what the scanner was capable of capturing).
And now I get the impression (poking around this forum) that scans made with 6.6 might not be readable with SF8 Studio!
So, two questions.
1. Where can I find instructions for installing SF8 on XP in a way that ensures that the right driver is installed? (Or even shows how to check to see for sure whether it's a driver problem?)
2. Does anyone out there have EITHER SF8 or 6.6 running smoothly for mass batch mode raw capture with the Nikon 9000 and an XP machine? If so, how did you do it?
For doing the initial scans to a digital negative, the scanner is hooked up through a FireWire PCMCIA adapter to an old Lenovo T60 running Windows XP. For processing to positives, I have SF8 HDR Studio running on a current laptop with 64 bit Windows 7. Studio seems to be working OK, but I have had nothing but trouble with the 9000/XP setup.
After many days of stuggling with SP8/XP, I finally got the process to limp along, more or less, using the Overview function -- not a good batch process, but it was working. Then I reinstalled XP to bring it up to SP3 before the recent termination of support, and now the SP8 interface seems to work more straighforwardly, but whenever I try to use Overview, the scanner goes through all 12 frames and then the program crashes.
One obvious answer would be to use the ADF function, but though the Silverfast 8 marketing materials extol the benefits of using the ADF setting with the Nikon 9000, there is no ADF button in the GUI I get when I install it. From this I'm guessing that the wrong driver may be installed, or the right driver may be installed incorrectly.
An alternative would be to use SF6.6 on the XP machine. I tried this, and it seemed to install much better, but how to set up a pure "raw capture" batch mode seems rather mysterious, and I can't find any instructions on how to perform what one would think to be the most basic function of a film scanner, namely, getting as much raw data from the negative into digital form with as little hassle as possible. Everything seems to be set up for someone who is going to be working with negatives one frame at a time and is going to optimize the positive version of each frame before going on to the next one -- not a good approach for bringing thousands of frames into a baseline digital form before they begin to deteriorate. The book that's sold along with SF8, and which I'm sorry I spent the money on, is badly written and filled with nonsense about the relationship between print sizes and resolution (as if I already knew what print sizes I might want and was going to all this trouble for any less resolution than what the scanner was capable of capturing).
And now I get the impression (poking around this forum) that scans made with 6.6 might not be readable with SF8 Studio!
So, two questions.
1. Where can I find instructions for installing SF8 on XP in a way that ensures that the right driver is installed? (Or even shows how to check to see for sure whether it's a driver problem?)
2. Does anyone out there have EITHER SF8 or 6.6 running smoothly for mass batch mode raw capture with the Nikon 9000 and an XP machine? If so, how did you do it?