Re: filmscanners: SS120 and Silverfast/Vuescan

[RogerMillerPhoto@aol.com]

Be advised that SilverFast Ai 5.5 will cause Photoshop to crash if you don't have enough RAM for the large file sizes that your SprintScan 120 (medium format film size) can generate.  Other software doesn't have that problem and uses scratch disc if it runs out of RAM, but SilverFast Ai crashes.  Lasersoft knows about the problem but may not be putting effort into solving the problem due to all of the other bugs they are working on.  My solution was to use Polaroid Insight to create the 48-bit raw scan that I wanted and then I was able to use SilverFast HDR to process the image.  HDR works fine, it's only Ai that I had trouble with.  As others have indicated, we need more information on your problem before we can help.  Your best source is Ian Lyons.  If anyone can help you get SilverFast working, it's Ian.

If you're having the same problem I did, here's my configuration:

PC with WinME
512 mb RAM
600 mb typical file sizes, but anything over 300 mb could cause the problem
Photoshop 6 and SilverFast 5.5 

You might try tight cropping of an image so as to generate a very small file (maybe 50 mb or so) and see if SilverFast can handle smaller files.

So far as an alternative to SilverFast, try Insight.  It's pretty good and easy to use.  SilverFast is more sophisticated and more powerful, but I doubt most people would ever need that extra power.  Insight has been improved recently and may be all you need.  At one time, Vuescan had an edge over Insight with regard to processing negatives, but if Insight works for you, then there's no need for Vuescan.  Vuescan has the disadvantage of being harder to use than Insight (but it's no where near as bad as SilverFast), but there are a lot of people on this list who can help you with it.

Good luck.

In a message dated 11/16/2001 1:42:12 PM Pacific Standard Time, barbara@barbarawhitephoto.com writes:


> I'm a new owner of this scanner and I'm wondering if anyone else has a
> problem  with SilverFast and Photoshop! So far version 5.2 and 5.5 will
> not run on my Photoshop (6.0) and the tech guy doesn't seem to know why.
> Any ideas?
>
> Should I just skip it and go to Vuescan? What are the advantages of Vuescan?
>
> Thanks for any replies.
>
> Barbara
> Barbara White/Architectural Photography
> http://www.barbarawhitephoto.com