Evaluating Silverfast
PostPosted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 12:01 pm
I just spent the last 2 days evaluating the Silverfast software for my Nikon coolscan V5 and Mac OSX 10.3.
I've tried numerous settings and different slides but I just can't produce a scan that even comes close to the quality of a standard Nikon scan.
To start with on the standard settings the scan and scan preview are substantially darker than the original slide or a scan produced by Nikon scan. Midtones are near black and all detail is lost.
Secondly Photoshop (CS) refuses to recognise the colour profile from silverfast. I get warning box saying the profile is invalid and will be ignored. I've tried numerous different colour settings in both Photoshop and silver fast with no effect.
I was most interested in the multi-exposure function but testing numerous slides on the 16 times setting just produces a slightly softer image. There isn't enough of a noise reduction to warrant the 25 minute scan time.
I don't know if any of these issues are resolvable. I tried to look at the video guides and documentation but both of these refused to install. At which point I gave up.
I don't have any such issues with the Nikon software. I just put my slide in and scan with all the 'help' turned off. Sometimes a 0.2 of a stop increase on the analog gain or ICE to get rid of dust helps but thats it. I think I'll stick with that.
Olliebear
I've tried numerous settings and different slides but I just can't produce a scan that even comes close to the quality of a standard Nikon scan.
To start with on the standard settings the scan and scan preview are substantially darker than the original slide or a scan produced by Nikon scan. Midtones are near black and all detail is lost.
Secondly Photoshop (CS) refuses to recognise the colour profile from silverfast. I get warning box saying the profile is invalid and will be ignored. I've tried numerous different colour settings in both Photoshop and silver fast with no effect.
I was most interested in the multi-exposure function but testing numerous slides on the 16 times setting just produces a slightly softer image. There isn't enough of a noise reduction to warrant the 25 minute scan time.
I don't know if any of these issues are resolvable. I tried to look at the video guides and documentation but both of these refused to install. At which point I gave up.
I don't have any such issues with the Nikon software. I just put my slide in and scan with all the 'help' turned off. Sometimes a 0.2 of a stop increase on the analog gain or ICE to get rid of dust helps but thats it. I think I'll stick with that.
Olliebear