Home | Login | Register
Camera reviews, digital camera reviews, and photography community

REVIEWS:  Digital Photography Software:  Scanning Software:
SilverFast Ai

More Products from LaserSoft
Link to this page

LaserSoft SilverFast Ai


 
Sort by Latest Review >> |  Sort by Best Rating >> |  Sort by Worst Rating >> |  View All >>
Next 5 Reviews >>
Rating
Reviewed by: 

Bob_Budding

( Intermediate)

Review Date
June 23, 2005

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Value Rating
 4 of 5

Used product for
3 Months to 1 year

Visitors rate this review
4.00 of 5,
1 votes

Rate this review?

Review 1 of 7

Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:

This is fantastic software. Nice workflow manager (scan pilot) guides you through the many choices. You can set most adjuustments to auto, though, and tweak the results from there. I was able to get very nice scans the first time I sat down to use this software.

Strengths:

* profiles for many negative films * IT8 calibration * prescan concept allows adjustments prior to full resolution scan * Nice automated tools

Weaknesses:

* Price * Confusing array of product offerings * software is specific to scanner model

Similar Products Used:

Vuescan Epson TWAIN

Customer Service:

Not needed



Buy

Would you like to Comment?
Join PhotographyReview for a free account, or Login if you are already a member.
Rating
Reviewed by: 

jimbopdx

( Expert)

Review Date
June 22, 2005

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Value Rating
 4 of 5

Used product for
1 to 3 months

Visitors rate this review
5.00 of 5,
1 votes

Rate this review?

Review 2 of 7

Price Paid:  $69.00 from Direct

Summary:

This product came bundled with my Polaroid SprintScan 120, and I recently upgraded to the version 6 product. It stands way above the Polaroid software, and can produce very fine results from this scanner. I'm doing both 120 format (6X9) and 35mm, almost exclusively from negatives (Portra 160NC mostly), and have gotten beautiful scans. The color, gamma, and curve adjustments are clear and intuitive and provide great control over the finished scan. I'm also trying VueScan, and between the two, SilverFast has a MUCH better user interface for getting better color, contrast, and density control in the finished image. I've had less good luck when using the SE version supplied with my Epson 3200. On that machine, I pretty much have gone back to using the Epson software.

Strengths:

Excellent user interface. Good color and contrast control. Fairly broad set of pre-defined color profiles for negative films. User interface adapts to the type of scanner and the time of film holder in use, to make control of the scanning operation easy and intuitive.

Weaknesses:

Not-so-great support for batch and multiple repetitive scan work-flow. Multi-pass scanning doesn't produce the smooth, clean scans that VueScan is able to achieve (but scans are still very good). You have to buy a separate product for each scanner you have... can get expensive, especially if it wasn't bundled with your scanner.

Similar Products Used:

PolaColor Insight (several versions), Epson scanning software, H-P Scanning software, VueScan.



Buy

Would you like to Comment?
Join PhotographyReview for a free account, or Login if you are already a member.
Rating
Reviewed by: 

simo-images

( Professional)

Review Date
June 17, 2005

Overall Rating
 1 of 5

Value Rating
 1 of 5

Used product for
1 to 3 months

Visitors rate this review
1.00 of 5,
1 votes

Rate this review?

Review 3 of 7

Price Paid:  $199.00 from on-line

Summary:

I have the latest version - 6.4.1r9a - and still cant get it to scan properly with my minolta 5400 more than two months after purchase. The software puts tram-lines onto the finished scan, appearing like scratch marks which arent on the original ! The bundled minolta software does not do this. Without massive post-processing the scans from silverfast are unuseable, not an acceptable result for an expensive product nor one aimed to professional users. As might be guessed, I cannot recomend Lasersoft Imaging as a company, at present I would not recommend Silverfast Ai program for the Minolta 5400 and forget any thoughts of customer support from them.

Strengths:

Downloads easily ( ! )

Weaknesses:

Doing what it claims to be able to do - it doesnt.

Similar Products Used:

Minolta bundled software Vuescan

Customer Service:

Customer support is absolutely neglible. Sending email from their website form just yields an auto response email from them. They do not reply to queries, problems or questions. Lasersoft appears happy to take the money but not support the customer. Only after informing them of my web page diary ( www.simo-images.net/silverfast.html { please delete if link not allowed } ) about this software did I receive a reply, claiming that my emails had got filtered into the trash - for a software company to claim that emails from their website form get automaticaly put into a trash folder is unbelieveable - perhaps they cant program properly ??



Buy

Would you like to Comment?
Join PhotographyReview for a free account, or Login if you are already a member.
Rating
Reviewed by: spokenwar
 (Professional)

Review Date
March 29, 2003

Overall Rating
 2 of 5

Value Rating
 1 of 5

Used product for
3 Months to 1 year

Visitors rate this review
1.83 of 5,
6 votes

Rate this review?

Review 4 of 7

Price Paid:  $145.00 from ?

Summary:

First of all - I needed scan software that would do batch jobs hands off with this PIE 1800AFL. This softwares ability to do any type of batch job sucks unless you have nice clean clear even negatives. I do not shoot nice clean clear even negatives. So - I hate this software. I hate it. The only thing I like on it is the ability to use the compensator to nudge the strip back and forth. You can get some very nice scans off of it.

Strengths:

Color slides - and if you are a genius you will get a lot more out of it than i did.

Weaknesses:

Their customer support, for one. You cannot keep the damn thing open after a scan. Each time you run a scan the software closes. Now, it has a checkbox to keep the software open, BUT, you guessed it, it don't. They have this navigator type thing that puts the steps in a strip that looks like an arrow. That has a toggle to close it, but it doesn't. this software has lots of little functional aggravations.

Customer Service:

Sucks.



Buy

Would you like to Comment?
Join PhotographyReview for a free account, or Login if you are already a member.
Rating
Reviewed by: henstt
 (Expert)

Review Date
September 25, 2002

Overall Rating
 1 of 5

Value Rating
 1 of 5

Used product for
1 to 3 months

Visitors rate this review
3.60 of 5,
5 votes

Rate this review?

Review 5 of 7

Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:

Use this product with a Nikon Coolscan iv. Before that used a Minolta Scan Dual II for about 1,5 year. With the Nikon and its Nikon Scan 3.1 I was up and running within 1 hour with very fine results. Then switched to Silverfast Ai 5.5. After some days and many hours I switched back.

Strengths:

None that I managed to discouver.

Weaknesses:

The user interface is a mess. Although it contains all necessary operation for image correction, it is at least a challenge to make a batch scan of one film strip using individual corrections per image.

Similar Products Used:

Minolta's proprietary scan software and Nikon's scan software 3.1 are quite OK.



Buy

Would you like to Comment?
Join PhotographyReview for a free account, or Login if you are already a member.
| Next 5 Reviews >>

Latest Pro Reviews:
2008 PMA Tradeshow Coverage
2008 PMA Tradeshow
Camera News:
Get Newsletter!
Enter e-mail address for PhotographyREVIEW
newsletter

 MtbREVIEW.com  RoadbikeREVIEW.com  OutdoorREVIEW.com
 PhotographyREVIEW.com  VideogameREVIEW.com  ComputingREVIEW.com
 AudioREVIEW.com  CarREVIEW.com  GolfREVIEW.com

Copyright ©1996-2008 All Rights Reserved.ConsumerREVIEW.com, a business unit of Invenda