LaserSoft Imaging

So frustrating. I have just installed on a brand new computer Photoshop CS, Microtek 9800xl running Scanwizard 7.01 and Silverfast Twain 6.4.r9 and every 5-10 scans it shuts down Photoshop. When it works, the scans are impecable BUT it runs sooooooooo slow.

On a second computer I have Photoshop CS running an older Scanwizard (6.12) and an older Silverfast Twain 6.4.1.r3 and they run fine. The scans are not as good when descreening but everything scans at least double as fast if not faster.

What is going on? How fast should it be scanning? It takes far too long for anyone to seriously suggest this can be normal. Running the stand-alone silverfast is not desirable either.

Please please help.

Kenneth Beck

Hello MicroSF6,

Why are you using SilverFast Twain Vs the Photoshop plug-in? It is my understanding that Twain has functional limitations. Try downloading and installing the Photoshop plug-in to see if that helps.

In regards to scan speed, I?m not sure it the applies to you, but just in case.

LSI_Magnussen wrote:Dear Jan,

it's quite likely that SilverFast does perform the grayscale scan in fact as a RGB scan, which can significantly increase scan times. To ensure, that SilverFast will perform a grayscale scan indeed as a real grayscale scan, go to Options->Special->ColorFilter and ensure, that something different than "White" is selected.

Regards
Ralf

Dear Kenneth,

do you compare scan times when doing Descreening? The Descreening has changed in the meantime and yes, it's slower than before, but the resulting quality is much better.

Best regards
Ralf

Thank you RAG, I will try the plug-in instead if you think that is better than TWAIN. What are the limitations you speak of with TWAIN?

And LSI_Magnussen, yes I have compared the scan times with and without descreening. Certainly descreening seems to triple (approx) the scan time. But yes you are right, the quality of the descreening is much better and for that I am grateful.

But as a design house which needs to make probably 100 scans a day at 600 dpi almost full A3, I now need to run the scanner from opening to closing as my scan times have easily doubled.

A tightening of the descreening time and maybe a function that will automatically detect the screen everytime without having to first preview the descreening would certainly save some time.

There is no doubt Silverfast is the best, but at least give me the option to revert to an older algorithm when quality is less important than speed. Otherwise I need to go back to running an older version of Silverfast. Or set up two different machines with two different versions running to maximise the benefits of older and newer. But this is not ideal you can imagine.

thanks all and i look forward to any other suggestions.

kenneth

Kenneth,

When you downloaded SilverFast there were two options; one for TWAIN and one was the Photoshop plug-in. When you download the Photoshop plug-in and install it you will find an import option in Photoshop for your scanner as shown in the screen shot below.

<img src="/img/forum/import.jpg">

You do know that you are able to scan without using the automatic descreening, right? If you select the normal descreening option there is a check box that turns off the auto detection. This does not control the two automatic options.

<img src="/img/forum/descreen.jpg">

I hope this helps!
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