PostPosted: Sat Nov 03, 2001 1:50 am
First I want do say, that Silverfast is really a great program. Especially the realtime correction proofs, what effort (in assembly? ) has been done. It is very important for adjusting the parameters for an image efficiently. So please don?t be frustrated, because my list of suggestions for improvements is so long. I think there are some relatively simple things, which could make the work easier.
I have ordered them with the most important at the beginning.
1) A Function for setting automatically the frame. I admit that on flatbed scanners this might not make sense, but on film scanners you want usually scan whole images. I believe, that the computer could set the frame faster and more accurate than I. This function could work as follows:
a) Determine the maximum rectangle so, that on every edge at leased 10% of the pixels have a luminosity exceeding a user defined threshold
b) From that rectangle step in, until either the luminosity of every pixel on the edge exceeds the threshold or a maximum (defined by user) number of steps has reached.
This is necessary because even GEPE slides seem not to have sharp edges and since some images may have dark corners.
2) Allow the highlight / shadow tool even if one of the adjustment dialogs is open. The same holds for setting / changing the fixed densitometers (i.e. redirect the command messages from the dialogs to the main window).
3) When determining the positions for the highlight / shadow tool, the same (10%) inset from the frame should be applied, as for the auto correction.
4) When the highlight / shadow tool is used, it would be fine, if the position would be shown enlarged in the densitometer zoom and the corresponding values in the densitometer.
5) Sometimes I wished, that the gradation dialog could be enlarged to work with finer resolution. Being able do add more points if needed like in Nikon scan would also be nice.
6) Setting highlight / shadow, minimum / maximum and color compression values seems to have no influence on the gradation curves. It seems that there are independent calculations applied to the image. For understanding how to adjust images, it would be helpful, if all the different calculations and their sequence were documented. How works selective color correction? For that correction no values in the expert dialog exists. Since it works on selected areas, I assume, that it directly manipulates the values of the pixels.
7) A nice feature of Nikon scan is the possibility to switch between a before and after view and to switch individual corrections on and off. It could be even better, if it would be possible to toggle between two different adjustments (e.g. the actual and the previous).
The automatic calculation of resolution might be fine for flatbed scanners. With a film scanner however it does not make much sense to scan an image to a size of 24 x 36 mm with 150 dpi. This wastes only time. So the default resolution of a film scanner should be the scanner resolution.
9) For the ICE I found in the documentation only, that it is possible to switch it on or off. It is not explained, which symbol means on and which symbol means off. I had to figure out by experiment. Even better than to document it, would be to switch the text in the status line (toggling between ?switch on? and ?switch off? or adding a note about the actual state). Also for the focus, the state could be shown in the status line.
10) Trying to adjust the position of a film strip resulted with Silverfast SE in a totally misadjusted film, with Silverfast Ai it seems to be a NOP. This function seems to be undocumented. Perhaps it would be better to have two buttons with the meaning ?move film 2 mm in this (or the other) direction?.
11) As in Photoshop, a lot of functions relays on the keys SHIFT, CTRL, ALT. There are other keys on the keyboard as well! Mnemonic keys (e.g. h for highlight and s for shadow) would be easier to remember.
I have ordered them with the most important at the beginning.
1) A Function for setting automatically the frame. I admit that on flatbed scanners this might not make sense, but on film scanners you want usually scan whole images. I believe, that the computer could set the frame faster and more accurate than I. This function could work as follows:
a) Determine the maximum rectangle so, that on every edge at leased 10% of the pixels have a luminosity exceeding a user defined threshold
b) From that rectangle step in, until either the luminosity of every pixel on the edge exceeds the threshold or a maximum (defined by user) number of steps has reached.
This is necessary because even GEPE slides seem not to have sharp edges and since some images may have dark corners.
2) Allow the highlight / shadow tool even if one of the adjustment dialogs is open. The same holds for setting / changing the fixed densitometers (i.e. redirect the command messages from the dialogs to the main window).
3) When determining the positions for the highlight / shadow tool, the same (10%) inset from the frame should be applied, as for the auto correction.
4) When the highlight / shadow tool is used, it would be fine, if the position would be shown enlarged in the densitometer zoom and the corresponding values in the densitometer.
5) Sometimes I wished, that the gradation dialog could be enlarged to work with finer resolution. Being able do add more points if needed like in Nikon scan would also be nice.
6) Setting highlight / shadow, minimum / maximum and color compression values seems to have no influence on the gradation curves. It seems that there are independent calculations applied to the image. For understanding how to adjust images, it would be helpful, if all the different calculations and their sequence were documented. How works selective color correction? For that correction no values in the expert dialog exists. Since it works on selected areas, I assume, that it directly manipulates the values of the pixels.
7) A nice feature of Nikon scan is the possibility to switch between a before and after view and to switch individual corrections on and off. It could be even better, if it would be possible to toggle between two different adjustments (e.g. the actual and the previous).
The automatic calculation of resolution might be fine for flatbed scanners. With a film scanner however it does not make much sense to scan an image to a size of 24 x 36 mm with 150 dpi. This wastes only time. So the default resolution of a film scanner should be the scanner resolution.
9) For the ICE I found in the documentation only, that it is possible to switch it on or off. It is not explained, which symbol means on and which symbol means off. I had to figure out by experiment. Even better than to document it, would be to switch the text in the status line (toggling between ?switch on? and ?switch off? or adding a note about the actual state). Also for the focus, the state could be shown in the status line.
10) Trying to adjust the position of a film strip resulted with Silverfast SE in a totally misadjusted film, with Silverfast Ai it seems to be a NOP. This function seems to be undocumented. Perhaps it would be better to have two buttons with the meaning ?move film 2 mm in this (or the other) direction?.
11) As in Photoshop, a lot of functions relays on the keys SHIFT, CTRL, ALT. There are other keys on the keyboard as well! Mnemonic keys (e.g. h for highlight and s for shadow) would be easier to remember.