LaserSoft Imaging

I have a question about upgrading to Dual Scan IV.
Today I own a Dual Scan III and I'm quite happy with it.
I tried the demo version of Silverfast AI and I got much better results compared to the Minolta software.

Now I decided to buy Silverfast AI, but I would like to solve a potential upgrade problem first. My scanner is not the newest one (over 2 years old) and if it will breakdown someday, probably it would be more reasonable to exchange it by the next revision Dual Scan IV instead of repairing it. Of course, it will depend on the heaviness of the damage. Upgrade to a higher level scanner would not be suitable for me, cause most of my color slides are taken with Kodachrome and therefore the ICE-Option won't work.
I have seen, that the demo versions for III and IV have different file sizes, so I guess the version for Dual Scan IV will not support the previous revision, too.

But I wouldn't like to buy a full licence of Silverfast AI again, only for upgrading to a new scanner revision. I can understand, that there is no update provided for a change from one manufacturer to another or between scanners with totally different quality levels. But I really expect a cheaper update for a new scanner revision. Maximum price should be like an update from silverfast itself (e.g. rev. 5.5 to 6 = $65).

At all events I definitely won't need an additional IT8 calibration target.

Please let me know, if an update from Dual Scan III to Dual Scan IV (or maybe to a future Dual Scan V, if supported) will be available, without paying the full price.
Regards
Erwin

I've just read topic about this topic and I'm a bit worried. That means that my old Scan Dual III may not be supported at all?

Also a question about drivers. Isn't it possible to just use original old Minolta drivers? I don't know if SilverFast 6.6 is using them or not, but quick search in google allowed me to correctly install and run them on Windows 7 64 bit so they do work even with newest systems. Just FYI.

I upgraded to Lion and my SF 6.6 installation stopped working. Remembering a recent email about SF 8 I re-read that and noticed the message that SF 6.6 doesn't work on Lion. I tried to get a price on the SF 8 upgrade from the lasersoft website but only got as far as registering my serial # (not sure when that became required?). Because my scanner (an old Minolta DiMAGE Scan Dual III) is not yet supported, I cannot download SF 8.

So to answer the question posted by this thread, my answer is "I've no idea when I'll even know the answer."

And I'm doing no scanning with Silverfast. Really looking forward to having this resolved, I've got a backlog of ~30 rolls of film from this summer's family vacation.

Hi There,

Hawk wrote:I've just read topic about this topic and I'm a bit worried. That means that my old Scan Dual III may not be supported at all?

It is correct. Although we want to support as many scanners as possible, we can not tell in advance whether or not a scanner will be supported in the future. Old scanners are not very easy to implement due to drivers incompatibility, lack of devices or replacement parts, as well as support for the manufacturer, etc.

The older the scanner the less likely it is we will implement it in newer versions of SilverFast due to the reasons just mentioned above.

All that make the implementation of the scanner very difficult, which at the same time means more resources and time for a very reduced number of units of the same model.

We apologize for any inconvenience and appreciate your understanding.

Hi there

mwerneburg wrote:So to answer the question posted by this thread, my answer is "I've no idea when I'll even know the answer."

I just answered right above this post

Kind regards

Thanks for clarifying LaserSoft's position. Is there a road map that spells out which scanners that LaserSoft will be supporting? Or is it simply the short list that's currently on the web site.

Thanks,

Hi there

mwerneburg wrote:Is there a road map that spells out which scanners that LaserSoft will be supporting? Or is it simply the short list that's currently on the web site.

the list published on the site currently describes the scanner that will be supported in the next step. It will be updated accordingly.

Cheers