Re: filmscanners: Need feedback on VueScan Improvements

[Jo Ann Snover <jo.snover@gte.net>]

> Yes, this already works in VueScan.  Turn off "Options|Auto exposure"
> and set "Options|RGB exposure" and "Options|Infrared exposure".
> This controls the same SCSI fields as Nikon changes when you set
> the "Analog gain" option in NikonScan.

Ed,

As a VueScan and NikonScan user (I have an LS-30), I have to say that I
cannot figure out what values I would put into VueScan in the two fields
you mentioned whereas I use the NikonScan analog gain quite a bit - I
can set negative or positive EV numbers. I just looked at VueScan, and
if I turn off Auto exposure, I get the following numbers in the RBG
exposure 0.925 and Infrared 1.999. I don't know what those mean, why
they're different or what I should set them to. 

I looked at the help and it says that the numbers are a multiplier, so I
assume that 0.925 is the equivalent of a small negative EV in NikonScan.

I think this is a good general illustration of the difficulties of the
VueScan interface. Even when I know what I want to do, I can't figure
out what combination of boxes to check or what magic numbers need to be
entered. When I have a problem scan, VueScan generally does a much
better job than NikonScan in producing a quality image. However, I still
find VueScan so hard to figure out that I use NikonScan most of the
time.

I think the general issue is that related things are not connected in
the interface in any way. For example, when I asked Ed why I couldn't
use cleaning, I didn't realize I had to set bits per pixel in the color
tab to 64 as well as set the Clean in the Options tab to Clean. There
are no clues that these two things are related. In NikonScan I have one
pull down list for off/clean/clean+sharpen.

To get back to the Analog Gain issue, why wouldn't you just have a +/-
EV control for that? And how on earth would the user know what to put
for the infrared exposure when that's something you can't see anyway?

Another user had commented that workflow rather than logical groupings
should drive the organization of the user interface. I think I agree
with that although it is a hard problem to support the workflow of many
different scanners with one interface.

regards,

Jo Ann