LaserSoft Imaging

We've operated a Minolta Elite 5400 film scanner for several years with no problems using the Minolta software, but recently an update to SnowLeopard made purchase of SilverFast SE Plus necessary.

We cannot get the software to properly focus on slides. We always used "manual focus" on the old Minolta software and got excellent results.

No matter which of the 4 focus options we choose in SilverFast, we can't get the scanner to accurately focus.

Within the option which previews a closeup thumbnail of the focus area, the preview shows what appears to be proper focus (we can see grain), but the final scan looks nothing like the preview. In addition, this focus option is excruciatingly slow.

The PDF manual doesn't even acknowledge that focus options exist within 6.6.2

Suggestions???

Dear customer,

Did you press the "manual" button in the focus preview?
That is necessary to refresh the focus setting.

I tested the focus with our own Minolta 5400 and it worked perfectly.

kind regards,
Arne Ketelhohn.

Yes, I did press the Manual button to get the painfully slow refresh of the focus thumbnail. (BTW, why would that button be called something as non-intuitive as "Manual". Why not something logical, like "Refresh", which would actually give a hint as to what the button does?)

The thumbnail does refresh, showing whether you've moved the slider in the correct direction, or a completely wrong direction, thus demonstrating whether or not you need to repeat the slow process of "guessing" where the focus should be.

Once I see grain in the preview, I then commit to a final scan. But the final never looks like the preview. I zoom all the way into the tiny section of the slide that the focus preview window showed, and there's no grain. It's soft.

I've gone back to slides I scanned months ago, before making the switch to SnowLeopard and buying SilverFast. I cannot achieve the acuity I got previously with the old Minolta Dimage software. Very frustrating.

Is it possible your image viewer does not show the images at it's full resolution?

Photoshop for example uses a soft-focus-filter to faster load images as long as you do not switch to a 100% view.

If this is not yur problem I will gladly forward you to our support system where you can send me some images for further analysis.
This cannot be a general issue as i tested this with our Minolta just yesterday.

kind regards,
Arne Ketelhohn.