LaserSoft Imaging

Dear forum users, dear LSI Support,

--- Warning, this is a long post and expresses some frustration. ---

I use the DigitDia 4000 now for about 8 slide magazines and I am
getting more and more annoyed about the interface and the interaction
between SF and the scanner.
I admit that good ideas are there, but the "finetuning" seems to have
been omitted

I really wonder which real tests were done to the use of the Batch
interface for the Reflecta DigitDia slide scanner.

With real tests I mean:
- using the real hardware (which Firmware did YOU use?)
- and actually scanning more than one sildeset in a real session

I have to note the following Bugs, Quirks and Annoyances with SilverFast
Batch Slide Scaning Interface (surely not complete, I still "learn"):

1.) There are two identically looking buttons, that describe the
slide-magazine properties and the position of the slide batch.
- one in the main preview window and
- one in the slide overview window
I observed the following inconsistent behaviour:

a.) when you update data in the dialogue from the main window
not all data is transferred to the button in the slide preview window.
Example: change the setting of the sildes to be scanned and see
if it is visible on "the other side".
-> Why have two times this dialogue?
-> Why can you change the total number of slides only from the main
window's dialogue?
-> Why is the button for the slide overview so far away from the other
two items (button for the slide settings + slide number), having
IT8 calibration and iSRD settings inbetween?

b.) The Window GUI rules are not followed in this (and other)
dialogues. The TAB key lets you wildly jump through the options
and not as expected from top to bottom! Worse, it even changes
the selection boxes by tab-ing through (this should happen with the
cursor keys and TAB only selecting the option-group).

c.) You cannot select the preview slides with the windows-GUI rules
like:
- ctrl-A for selection of ALL slides (this should be limited to
previously definde number of slides in the magazine!)
- you cannot use the page-up and page down to scroll the slides,
nor can you use the cursor keys.

d.) You cannot permanantly change the size of the slide overview window.
The next time you start SF it is again at the old position + size.


2.) When you actually WORK with the scanner you will very fast find out
that it is MUCH more convenient to move the magazine by hand forward from
position 50 to 1 after the slide overview was created.
You update the number, put the magazine at position 1 manually and start
scanning. This really works well until the following point:
- generate a 50 slide magazine preview
- reset to 1
- move magazine
- scan the whole magazine,
- take the next magazine
- reset to 1
- start the overview scan
! here it will hang after the 3rd slide.
It will generate a black mini-slide and will not continue.
If you exit the overview dialogue and get back in, it will only show you 3
slide frames and not the usual 100. When you access the slide-set options
it will still show what you had set (e.g. 50), but you still see only those
3 and no more. There is NO WAY to get out of that except to restart SF.
Q:
- Does the scanner itself "know" about its position in the silde-magazine?
- Do you reset it there when you store the new value (back from 50 to 1)?
It might be a counter overflow inside the scanner?


3.) The Batch-Scan SAVE dialogue (where you construct the filenames) will
forget the path (luckily NOT the filenames) when you kill the SF-Launcher
process. I have to do this from time to time when SF hangs after scanning a
slide (see next bug). Settings should be stored so that this can be restored
like the filenames are.

3a.) The same interface does not comply to Windows GUI rules as the one
mentioned above: TAB makes will never let you step from one part of the
filename to the next, in fact TAB completely excludes the filename section.
When fixing TAB-ing, please ommit the (+) (-) from the sequence.


4.) Occasionally (sorry, NO CLUE) SF hangs after the RAW data were nearly(!?)
transferred and will hook the CPU forever (until you kill it).
I watched that the RAW file grows and grows until about 0.5 MB are missing
from the expected 44-45 MB. I compared an unsuccesfull case with a successful
one for the same slide and the same settings.
Once the problem occurs, it is VERY sticky, i.e restarting SF, switching off
the scanner + on again, nothing helps! Then after 4 retries it worked again.

Size faulty, 4 times identical: 46 224 000 bytes
Size OK same picture, same settings: 46 368 432 bytes
I had to suspend the SF launcher (with sysinternals process explorer) to
be able to copy the file. I also have the associated infrared raw data for
the successful case.
I can supply you with several .raw files but you need to tell me where
I can upload them.

The problem appears with the scanner running on FW 1.02 or 1.04 (no test
with 1.01 or 1.05 (where the slideset preview does not work at all).
It happens with HIREPP ON or OFF.
I use the firewire interface or the USB, it happens on BOTH!

In any case, SF should not hang on incomplete data, but report an error
and stop processing.

Q:
Why are the RAW data only 45 MB? It should be the double size if the scanner
works with 16Bit/color internally. I suspect that also the option 48->24 Bit
reads 48 bits from the device then processes the data and then finally
reduces to 24 bit. Is that not true? If not, why offer to store 48 Bit?


5.) The "delete" key does not work in most text fields. You have to use the
Backspace instead.


6.) When you interrupt a batch scan (CTRL .) then the batch settings are
not updated to the point until where the batch was processed. Only the
actual position in the batch is stored.
You could supply a button "interrupt" batch if the "CTRL ." gets out of the
work in unusual way.


7.) Whoever did the batch scanning surely wants to leave the device
unattended until the time it has done the job.
Please supply a batch progress bar and an information when (date + time)
the job will be finished for the two items:
- generate slide overview
- batch scan
Please recalculate after each slide.


8.) SF cannot sit silently minmized in the system tray when doing the
batch scanning. Dialogue windows pop up again for each slide. If you
prevent them to steal your Foreground Window's focus (windows option)
you can survive, but this is not a nice behaviour.


9.) SF does not update its Preview window when doing a batch scan and you
put it in backround. You can enforce it by bringing the preview window into
focus, but then you get the unprocessed (no light corrections) picture.
It also does not update the slide number in the preview window.


10.) SF windows and dialogues are not refreshed when sending them to
Background and getting them back to foreground until the current scan
operation has completed (this can take some minutes).


11.) When scanning a batch, please supply BOTH numbers,
- the sequence number of the current batch (this is supplied)
- and also the current slide number in the slide-set.
Both may be different. e.g. when you scan a bunch from slide 12-25 where
the sequence number will be 1-13.


12.) Further improvements for the batch slide interface:

a.) Supply an option that the slide magazine is returned to position "1"
automatically after the slide overview was created. This will minimize
the seduction to do that manually to save time when you want to start the
actual batch scan after the overview scan was completed.

b.) Supply a button to reset the position to "1" without moving the magazine
to surely set al variables inside SF and the scanner so that a flawless
operation is ensured. The agazine will be set manually then.

c.) Supply an option "automatically detect empty slides". This will allow
to previewscan a complete magazine without manually setting the ranges.
c1.) Please also supply an option to set a number of consecutive empty
slides after which the rest of the mazine will be skipped.

d.) Suppply a button inside the overview window to start the actual
scan process (go directly there).


13.) Just noted, that the speed the scanner pre-scans the slide for
the "Bildautomatik" depends on the size of the preview window.
I wonder if this is a good idea to have it depending on the size.
I even more wonder why you need that as an extra scan anyhow, since you
cannot (I think) influence the lighting conditions of the scanner, i.e.
exposure time or light strength.


So far for this weekend, quite an impressive list, isn't it?
I will not have accesss to my scanner through the week, so no more
reports to expect for a few days

I know that some bugs may be attributed to the scanner itself, like the
most annoying HANG of SF with incomplete RAW data, but the vast majority
simply looks like bad interface design to me.
I also know that some items are "only" annoyances and improvement proposals,
nevertheless I am a little dissappointed

On your PLUS is definitely the many options you have in processing the
picture data once you have it, but until you get there has much room
for improvement!
This is especially surprising to me, since the DigitDia is supported
since quite some time (previously 3600 without Infrared). Have you never
ever received complaints like that? Are you proud of the interface as it is?

I must say that I am in the Software business myself (not for end users
though) and I can assure you that a batch interface like this one would
not pass my quality check: Release for commercial use DENIED, beta quality!

Thanks for your patience to read so far!

I hope that LSI will show that they take the interface design as serious
as they take the image processing.


bye
Tobias


P.S.: Maybe some DigitDia users can comment on my opinion?

Dear Tobias

I feel sorry to see you so troubled by the fruitless attempts of getting superior scan results with SilverFast from your Reflecta Digitdia 4000.

However, such a detailed posting deserves a detailed answer and close examination in our internal testing center. Thus, I'd like to ask for a few more days of patience until I get a complete testing results for your scanner.

I shall open a support ticket and contact you by email, because unfortunately LSI staff will only provide limited support in the forum; also the purpose of the imaging forum is not to provide personal support, but to serve as a platform for imaging professionals for exchange of experience and communicating ideas [ viewtopic.php?p=9763&highlight=9763 ].

Thank you in anticipation of your kind co-operation.

Best regards
Sonny Noack
- Manager Technical Support, LaserSoft Imaging AG -

Dear Sonny,

...thanks for your reply!
I am really glad that I don't need to feel ignored.

Take your time and ask for symptoms if you need them.

I know about the forum's purpose and was hoping that some
fellow DigitDia users with SF give some comments, however
it seems that my post was just too long.

bye
Tobias

Dear reader, dear LSI Support,

...some more funny things about the bach interface:

related to item 1.) of my initial post:
I learned now the two buttons for slide magazine properties have different
purposes (it is a few characters in the dialogue's layout that make the
difference).
- from the main preview window it adjusts the BATCHSCAN selection
- from the slide preview generation is sets the SLIDEPREVIEW selection
However can you choose the BATCHSCAN selection by clicking the slides
in the slide preview window, at least as long as it shows you all the
available slides (see next quirk).
My proposal to avoid the confusion:
- allow all settings in BOTH dialogues (do not leave out the number of
slides in the magazine) and synchronize with each other.
- use different buttons for the properties, maybe overlayed letters like
"O" for Overview and "B" for Batchscan. This will not lead in the path of
confusion I was in.
- Design the properties dialogues with some more difference, e.g.
from the one started for BATCHSCAN supply a button the slide overview
that will allow selection of slides. Please do NOT use the same button as
for the slide-overview if you intend to allow selection only. If you will allow
all the same settings from there as well use the same button of course.


related to item 2.) of my initial post:
Currently I have the problem that the slide overview only shows one (1)
slide to be available in a magazine. A correction to the the batch-scanning
options does not help. I have to repeat my question:
Why can you adjust the total number of slides on the BATCHSCAN
options and not in the SLIDEPREVIEW options?
A restart of SF does not help either.
Also a killing of the SF Launcher process has no consequences later.
I could also not find any registry settings related to Silverfast and
am not willing to delete the hidden settings file
Dokumente und Einstellungen\All Users\Anwendungsdaten\M33KI
and re-adjust all things in SF again.
I am stuck now with a useless slide overview dialogue.
Due to the many annoyances I did not use it very often anymore

bye
Tobias

Dear readers, dear LSI Support,

...another annoyance with the file-save dialogue:

When you are starting a Batch-Scan and have entered in one of your
several name-parts an invalid character for file-names like a slash "/",
the filename dialogue says "invalid name entered, reset to default" and
starts the Batch scan!
This ruined a rather elaborate naming convention I had applied to my
slide scans and that I have to reconstruct now.
It would come in very handy, if you would remember the already used
name-parts in the drop-down boxes.

PLEASE get that dialogue the possibility to correct the invalid name by
hand and let the user restart.

It would also be good if you supply an immediate feedback if you have
received a "Cancel scan" request with CTRL-.


bye
Tobias

Hello everyone so far... I would like to present my own contribution. I have something of the same background as tobbie, i.e. software, but defintely for end users. Look at www.superoffice.com to see what we're doing at work.

Now, from the documentation it's obvious that Silverfast comes from the Mac? Porting a GUI between Mac and Windows is much, much harder than it looks; we dropped it years ago. Breaking Windows GUI conventions is annoying, yes, but not the place I would apply the most brain power at first.

What I would recommend is to look at the overall workflow. Count the clicks required to prescan, adjust and final-scan one magazine of slides; then think about how that number could be halved or made even less. When you have thousands of slides to scan, efficiency is *everything*.

The SilverFast user interface looks "grown" to me, i.e., it started out much simpler, and had a lot of good options, functions and ideas tacked on, one button at a time. SilverFast is now (in my opinion) getting close to a point where a redesign is in order. I know, that is both hard and expensive, but you should seriously consider it. There are too many functions tangled together in too few, not very well organized screens. It probably means that you excellent functions are not being used!

Some suggestions for quick fixes in the meantime:
a) Don't start long-running operations without giving the user information about what is going on, how far in the process we are, and how to interrupt it. This would cover things like not doing a batch scan with a half-illegal --> default file name; updating the preview image after each scan in a batch, and such things. Another example is if you forget to reset the tray position after a successful scan and tray change. Suddenly the scanner wants to go 100 slides backwards with no visible way of interrupting it. It takes a looong time and is very frustrating when it happens.

b) Use the prescans from Overview in the Job Manager Edit mode (I have a duplicate posting on this subject in another thread). That would avoid a lot of fragmented, waiting time and make the process **much** more efficient. The point is to avoid time fragmentation, I should have the waiting times in big chunks, while the scanner is chewing through a whole magazine. Job Manager is very close to being there, and I know of no comparable product. You could increase your value a lot here.

c) Make it clearer what options are acutally enabled. I find it hard to know, for instance, whether Q-factor and Screen settings mean that some descreening is being done, or not. Similarly, the "Image type" selection - how does it influence the other settings, and when?

d) The AACO function operates on the preview (and sometimes works magic!). But when I click OK, the preview goes back to what it was like before. So... is AACO going to happen, or not? It is hard to know, I must experiment.

My meaning is not to complain for the sake of complaining. I have bought a fairly expensive piece of software, which is probably able to do what I want, but I see that it needs help getting there. So please take this in a positive spirit, that is definitely how I mean it. Take your time and do it right.

Best regards,
Marek, Oslo, Norway

tobbbie wrote:Warning, this is a long post and expresses some frustration.
...
Have you never ever received complaints like that? Are you proud of the interface as it is?
...
Maybe some DigitDia users can comment on my opinion?

I am such a user too and had already written something about your topics in the forum.

I use the now for about 8 slide magazines and I am getting more and more annoyed about the interface and the interaction between SF and the scanner.

I think that Silverfast staff meanwhile became aware about the (windows) user interface needing redesign and is working on it. But I do not when a revised version can be expected.
Regarding the scanner, I would say that there are much better models on the market, but I know none with the large volume batch scanning capabilities.

I really wonder which real tests were done to the use of the Batch interface for the Reflecta DigitDia slide scanner.

For me, it seems that batch scanning is extra in Silverfast, for which it has not been optimized - the main focus was on non-batch scanning as most scanners do not allow batch scanning of so much slides.

b.) The Window GUI rules are not followed in this (and other)

See above

2.) When you actually WORK with the scanner you will very fast find out that it is MUCH more convenient to move the magazine by hand forward from position 50 to 1 after the slide overview was created.

You are right, that is due to the primitive transport mechanism of the scanner. I have magazines with 100 slides, so I do also move the magazine manually to perform a large step.

! here it will hang after the 3rd slide.

As I have chosen another workflow for my volume batch scans, I observed some but not all of your difficulties; this decision was influenced by the problems I experienced.
I have experimented to find settings suitable for the majority of my slides and all slides are first scanned with these settings without a prescan.
Later, a review the scans and rescan selected slides with bad scanning results in a second (and if necessary more) runs with modified settings.

Q: - Does the scanner itself "know" about its position in the silde-magazine?
...
It might be a counter overflow inside the scanner?

With the above workflow, the scanner makes much more moves forward than backwards. When scanning hangs, it has nothing to do with the scanner position.
- the scanner does not recognise manual moves (pulling the slider out and moving the magazine by hand)
- Silverfast does not detect manual moves nor moves initiated by the buttons on the scanner.
- Silverfast refuses advancing position beyond the entered magazin size.
==> The scanner does not know its position, the only one knowing it seems to be the software, so you must always set the new position in Silverfast after any manual move (the same applies to the Cyberview scanning software deliverred with the scanner).

3.) The Batch-Scan SAVE dialogue (where you construct the filenames) will forget the path (luckily NOT the filenames) when you kill the SF-Launcher process. I have to do this from time to time when SF hangs after scanning a slide (see next bug). Settings should be stored so that this can be restored like the filenames are.

I find that annoying too. This does always happen, when Silverfast aborts for whatever reason.
On my computer, Silverfast does sometimes abort for unknown reason - but this does only happen if I use other applications simultaneously, never when Silverfast runs exclusively.
Another situation is when I want to terminate scanning prematurely when I see something runs bad. As the user interface is unresponsive for a very long time, I need to terminate it with the task manager. However unlike some other software, no settings are lost - with the only exception of the path name.

The problem appears with the scanner running on FW 1.02 or 1.04 (no test with 1.01 or 1.05 (where the slideset preview does not work at all).

Where did you get these firmware versions ? On the Reflecta web site I do only see 1.02 - this is the version to which I have upgraded my scanner some time ago.

Please supply a batch progress bar and an information when ...the job will be finished

That would be fine, however when you have worked with the scanner for some time, you will be able to estimate scanning times based on the number of slides to scan (which may last hours).

8.) SF cannot sit silently minmized in the system tray when doing the batch scanning.

I have often noticed the program unwantedly changing the focus, but there must be additional conditions for this to happen - for me this does only happen sometimes.

9.) SF does not update its Preview window when doing a batch scan and you put it in backround.

This might be considered as a bug or feature as well, however:

You can enforce it by bringing the preview window into focus, but then you get the unprocessed (no light corrections) picture.

Behaviour is not consistent. I see the preview window beeing updated when stopping the screensaver.
After the batch scan, the preview reverts to the picture before starting the batch scan.

10.) SF windows and dialogues are not refreshed when sending them to Background and getting them back to foreground until the current scan operation has completed (this can take some minutes).

The user interface is so unresponsive (see above) because the program hangs too long in an uninterruptible routine for scanner data read or image processing without calling the window manager. Maybe, the scanning routines a hard to subdivide, but the programmer could implement a multi-threaded program with one thread for the user interface and the other one for the 'real job'.

11.) When scanning a batch, please supply BOTH numbers,

The sequence number is already displayed in the small preview, the slide number is in the appropriate field of the large prescan window.

c.) Supply an option "automatically detect empty slides".

It seems that such a function is already implemented but it does not work as expected:
When a single missing slide is in the magazine, it is skipped and the next one is scanned instead, but without the slide number being incremented. This requires the slide files to be renamed after the batch, if an empty position has accidently been scanned.
Maybe in this case the scanner and/or the software thinks, the transport was hanging ?

Please also supply an option to set a number of consecutive empty slides after which the rest of the mazine will be skipped.

I do not think that such an option is really necessary: If you are near the scanner, you should be able to stop scanning manually (for current problems doing this see above), otherwise the time wasted would be no problem (white files can simply be deleted afterwards). The number of options is alredy large enough !

13.) Just noted, that the speed the scanner pre-scans the slide for the "Bildautomatik" depends on the size of the preview window.

Except for batch scanning (which needs no preview), adjusting the prescan resolution to the size of the display size of the window is a normal behaviour, also known from other scanning software; a too high resolution causes unnecessary long prescan waiting time while too low resolution means an unusable bad preview quality.
There is an option selecting between a high resolution prescan and normal prescan (see manual).

I wonder if this is a good idea to have it depending on the size. I even more wonder why you need that as an extra scan anyhow, since you cannot (I think) influence the lighting conditions of the scanner, i.e. exposure time or light strength.

In the options dialog, there are light settings. However, I am unsure how these interact with the other exposure settings.

On your PLUS is definitely the many options you have in processing the picture data once you have it, but until you get there has much room for improvement!

I agree.

Eckart M?rkel