Ease of use, ease of install

None known yet

Epson 1240u would no longer work with new Windows 64-bit computer. While looking for driver I found the Vuescan softwqare. After a trial run that looked good I purchased and now have my scanner back. I plan to also order at my office to get my scanner back in service.

Zero for the Coolscan 9000. It also works on an older HP flatbed scanner that is no longer supported on Win7. For sanning printed media like letters it'll work. For scanning high resolution slides and negatives, it is terrible.

Overexposed scans, washed out scans,

I bought this software to use my Coolscan 9000 on Windows 7. I've reported at least half a dozen problems and have gotten similar customer service responses as others. The problems are easily reproducible, yet he keeps asking for additional "procedures". Emails to me are like he's talking to a 6 year old.

Major issues:

Scan is previews, color corrected and exposure adjusted. Looks great. Saan and save and all scans are washed out and flat compared to the preview. I've taken scrren shots showing the scan and the preview on the same scrren with a procedure to create. No response.

Crop mask is never placed correctly on 6x6 slides. So simple a monkey could create it. "I need more info on the steps.". Simple, power up, start it and scan. Don't change anything. Never heard anything.

Using multi-sample (2 CCD samples at the same position, and average). Scans are uniformly overexposed by 2 stops. Again, no exotic changes needed. No response.

Customer Service

Terrible t ononexistent. He's condescending and apparently only works on things that interest him. I doubt he has a Coolscan to work on reproducing the problems.

Similar Products Used:

SilverFast

-Inexpensive way to keep Nikon scanners going. Good value.
-Interface easy to figure out
-Updated regularly (If you buy the pro version for 79.99 upgrades are free for life, and you have a year to decide, in which case you just pay the difference for the upgrade from the standard version)
-Will run a large variety of scanners with one program
-Stable--doesn't hang up or crash
-Many people now using, you can find answers to most questions on forums
-Manual focusing better on Vuescan than Nikon Scan.

-Slower scans than Nikon scan. Even the machine sounds slower. Even after the scan, more time is needed to process the image and create a file.
-Colors don't match preview, not as accurate as Nikon Scan. Portra, for example, looks great on Nikon Scan, but weird on Vuescan. Just can't get it right
-Lack of batch scanning
-Process to scan frames 2/3 on a strip of 120 is laborious due to having to guess at frame offset measurements, a constant process of trial-and-error that differs with each frame unless they're all exactly the same (which they never are).
-Not the best documentation.

Having only recently acquired a Nikon Coolscan 8000 ED scanner, I purchased this software due to frequent crashes of the Nikon Scan 4.0.2 software on my Mac using OS X 10.5.8. Having experimented many hours with both programs (as long as the Nikon Scan will run, that is), I prefer to use the Nikon for several reasons. For one thing, Vuescan does NOT support batch scanning--each frame must be done one-at-a-time, which is very time-consuming. Another reason is that Vuescan is noticeably slower at scanning than Nikon Scan, perhaps twice as long. While may tout multi-pass scanning as a great feature, I've discovered that scans lose sharpness due to the small tolerances of the scanning mechanisms. They just can't scan exactly the same place on each pass, and each pass multiplies the error. True with both the Nikon 8000 and Epson V500.

Vuescan has less control over many features, such as sharpening and levels. And in spite of the many films supposedly programmed in, Nikon Scan gets better colors from negative film. This was true of both my Nikon 8000 and Epson V500. And colors don't match the preview.

In general, Vuescan is good for the price, is a good backup for Nikon Scan if it won't work on your computer, and is regularly updated.

Customer Service

Not yet needed

Similar Products Used:

Epson Scan, Nikon Scan

Probably geared towards someone who is looking for the best, and so has many possibilities to 'tune' the processing to suit your requirements. For me changing scanners every so often, means that I can actually get going more quickly now, as I know the software well.

probably not too well suited for someone who is just wanting a 'click and go', although my wife, who is not technology minded, just used it without any instruction and got exactly what she wanted.

I have used this product for seven years and have seen it grow from a rather simple product to a good easy to use product, but most importantly allows one to squeeze more than is ordinarily possible from a scanner using the manufactures software. I have used this software with 5 different scanners from mid to high quality products always testing the shipped software and always finding Vuescan gives better results. If you take the time to profile correctly and read the instructions, you will always get very good results.

Customer Service

The few questions I have fired at Ed Hamrick have been answered very quickly and with all the information required - I am a very satisfied customer

Similar Products Used:

Silverfast, Nikon, Canon, Epson and HP products

None

This guy is a jerk, A-hole with an attitude

Downloaded the trial version, software didn't seem to work on the trial version, so I emailed the owner of the software Ed Hamerick at "Ed Hamrick "

My Message to him "Tried the trial version once, it scanned half the document then stopped. What was presented was a PDF type image with nothing but $$$ all over the page. Could not see the document I scanned at all. If that was supposed to be a "trial version Try it and see if you like it" type thing, I'm not impressed. The document was apparently not even scanned. Please advise.....I thought the idea of a Trial Version was to let you see how it worked?

Duane Davis
Aerospace Engineer



Ed Responded to my email with


On Jan 9, 2010, at 4:16 PM, Ed Hamrick wrote:

I'm not impressed either - you didn't tell me what kind of scanner
you're using, what operating system you're using, and you didn't
include a vuescan.log file.

Hardly the professionalism of an "Aerospace Engineer"

Save me scrapping a good scanner

To early to tell

Just installed Windows 7 64bit to find my Epson scanner would no longer work, link on Epson website led me to Vuesoft download.
Five minutes later Vuesoft installed and scanner up and running.
Big thumbs up!

None.

Misrepresentations about capabilities of the software.

Despite the representations on the website, this software will not work with 64 bit windows. No offer of refund and support requests were ignored. Recommend that you avoid this program if you have a high end computer.

Customer Service

poor

Hardware-control of scanner parameters such as CCD exposure (depending on scanner used) makes VueScan clearly superior to most manufacturer's scanning software.

Tricky to use with color print (negative) film, requiring quite much tweaking and fine adjustment. The choice of films comprises mostly older, obsolete types.

VueScan is the miracle program that turns your consumer scanner into a piece of high-end graphics studio equipment and - with some film scanners - shows the true dynamic range of color print film and gets out all details from slides. VueScan would be worth a sixth star in both categories.

Customer Service

Excellent. With the professional versions, updates are unlimited.

Similar Products Used:

MiraFoto; Dimage Scan

Color balance, flexibility, batch processing

Harder to use

VueScan is replacement software for the stuff that comes with the scanner. I have a Minolta Scan Dual II which is a good enough film scanner, but the software it comes with is poor. It takes a reasonably high scan resolution and kills it :-) VueScan is for those serious about getting good quality. I would judge its main strengths to be 1) color balance, 2) flexibility, and 3) batch processing. Color balance algorithms make it possible to scan film and get pretty close to what you want on the first try, thereby dramatically reducing the amount of effort needed in phot editing software. Flexibility is provided by the extensive customization capabilities of the software. You can set just about everything you can think of. This is a strength and a drawback, but once you learn the software, it becomes a signficant strength. Batch scanning capabilities of VueScan are awesome. Scanning film is slow (perhaps slower on my less expensive scanner) and VueScan gives you the ability to make sure you only have to do the slowest part of the overall process, namely "reading" the film into a digital file on the computer, once, since you can save what is effectively the raw output of the scanner to a file. Then, you can use VueScan to tweak up the image to a presentable state over and over, as though you were re-scanning the negative. This is brilliant! On the down side, the software is definietly not for the faint-of-heart. It''s a little klunky and not well organized. This kind of software takes a mathematical genious to create; I think perhaps that strength is not commonly found along with strength in deisgn of user interface. The user interface is not bad, it''s just kind of raw. The help is terse but complete. Expect to learn a thing or two in order to use the software effectively, but once you do, you''ll be glad you did.

Customer Service

Was excellent (via Usenet newsgroup) until author inexplicably disappeared. Some skilled pros hang out in the newsgroup, though, and you''ll get great support in this way. And there are frequent upd

Similar Products Used:

Minolta scanner software

- Faster prescan (20sec with my FS 2710) - Faster final scan (20 to 45 sec. according the dpi chosen) - Outstanding color rendition - Wonderful rough scan - Possibility to change brightness, contrast and colors without prescanning againg (only one click on Refresh do the job).

Some functions are unuseful for 95% of users (not grave, just there for nothing). Some options in menus are not at their good place (not grave, just irritating).

Good option to those like me, needed more functions than the original manufacturer software. It is better than every manufacturers (Canon, Minolta & Nikon) softwares. Major new release this week (V 7.4.1)

Customer Service

I suggest a lots of improvements not long time ago. Now there''s the 7.4.1 version more user friendly than other versions. Mr Hamrick is open to suggestions.

Similar Products Used:

None