Re: filmscanners: SilverFast Upgrade Disaster

["Steve Greenbank" <steve@gccl.fsbusiness.co.uk>]

Hi Roger

A few things have occurred to me - please ignore the first 2 if you have a
Mac:

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1) Are you using Win 9x/Me with more than 512MB ? If you are you may  need
to add a line to the file c:\windows\system.ini

On the line immediately following
[vcache]
add the following
MaxFileCache=131072

That will set the max file cache to 128Mb and prevent a known windows bug.
You may like to try a larger value.
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2) Have you set the swap file to too small a fixed size. (People tend to set
up a fixed size as this works best- as long as it's big enough). I don't
quite remember where this is for NT/2000 but it's somewhere similar.

Under start->control panel->system (you can press windows key and break key
together as a short cut). Find the virtual memory setting under performance.
Ensure this either set to something big (double your memory size is often
recommended) but you also need to consider your scan size. Either setting
"Let windows manage my virtual memory" or bearing in mind the size of your
disk I'd set it to 4096 (too big) to see if this is your problem.
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3) Out of available disk space (I think this applies to a Mac too). PS uses
scratch disk too as does printing if you are simultaneously doing some. A
quick way to test this other than delete loads of files is to set your
history states to 1 in PS. Edit->Preferences->General
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4) PS memory management. This is accessed under
Edit->Preferences->Memory&ImageCache . Here you can set memory usage by PS I
think 50-75% is generally recommended but if you have a lot of memory you
can go higher. I use 80%. You have to leave a little for the operating
system and memory resident programs. Ensuring the minimum spec for OS is
left for non PS should be sufficient.
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You will need to restart Windows for the first 2 and PS for the last 2.

Good luck

Steve

----- Original Message -----
From: <RogerMillerPhoto@aol.com>
To: <filmscanners@halftone.co.uk>
Sent: Monday, August 13, 2001 3:23 AM
Subject: Re: filmscanners: SilverFast Upgrade Disaster


> In a message dated 8/12/2001 4:56:31 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
> steve@gccl.fsbusiness.co.uk writes:
>
>
> > Not wishing to sound to gloomy, but the advice sounds like a "we have no
> > idea - but it might work if we re-install everything". The good news is
that
> > it often does - the bad news is IME it more often doesn't. When I had a
> > problem they gave me all sorts of advice and blamed other software
suppliers
> > when I knew it was their problem from the tests I had done. I had also
found
> > a way round the problem which was an inconvenience rather than a
> > showstopper. 3-6 months later an update fixed the problem but they
didn't
> > e-mail me to tell me. If I had paid the normal asking price (it was
bundled)
> > and my livlihood depended on it I would have been bloody livid.
> >
> > Depressingly Lasersoft support is actually better than many others.
> >
> >
>
> Your comment about workarounds gave me an idea.  After the reinstall of
> Photoshop, if SilverFast causes Photoshop to freeze again with a 500 MB
file
> from my SS120, I'll try to install SilverFast as TWAIN rather than a
> Photoshop plug-in.  I remember having a similar problem where my Microtek
> ScanMaker 5 flatbed scanner with ScanWizard software would cause Photoshop
to
> freeze about every third scan.  ScanWizard could be used either as a
> Photoshop plug-in or as a stand alone program, so I run it by itself now.
> You're right, it's not convenient, but right now I need to get some work
done
> and the sooner the better, even if it's not convenient.
>