SilverFast 8.8 r14 update issue

[saiguy]

Mark, since you are paying attention to this thread may I ask you a question? When I replied to Sonke's ticket and told everything is OK now, I asked this same question of him. If I get a response from him I will share it here.

This has always been confusing to me. Best I could discern from your ebook; this For HDR Output, check box in SF Preferences, is to be checked if one wants to take the HDR RAW file directly to PS. If one wants to develop the HDR RAW file in HDR Studio, which is always the case for me, you do NOT check that box.

When I now hover the tool tip over that box, it says, if I remember right, for a HDR Workflow. For me a HDR workflow means I develop the scan in HDR Studio.

Is this a policy change?

Since I further develop these HDR RAW scans ONLY in HDR Studio, should I check that box or not?

[Mark D Segal]

I have not revisited this matter since the book was published, so I suggest either experimenting yourself with it on and off to see which outcome works better, or awaiting their advice on it. Do let us know.

[saiguy]

Mark.  I did hear back from Sonke. Unfortunately he did not understand my question, his answer was irrelevant, and I don't want to bother him further.

I ran a Kodachrome slide scan with & without the HDR box checked in Preferences. Both seemed exactly the same in HDR Studio.

[Mark D Segal]

OK, I've verified what's going on. Actually nothing. The intended behaviour is that if you select the HDR Raw scan format in the Output format dropdown menu, whether that HDR Output box is checked or not in General Preferences makes no difference when opening the file in SilverFast HDR - it will open with the gamma selected in SilverFast HDR. There is, however, supposed to be a difference IF you open the HDR Raw scan in Photoshop. In that case, the file should open with the gamma selected in SilverFast 8 when the box is checked. When the box is NOT checked, it should open the file in Photoshop with linear gamma. In my trial just now, it made no difference whether that Preference box is checked or unchecked - it opened the file in Photoshop in linear gamma. I believe there is a bug somewhere - something must have changed in either SilverFast or Photoshop to prevent the intended behaviour from working.

[saiguy]

Mark, thanks for looking at this.

What you have just explained is what I understood from your SF Scanning book.

I don't know why anyone would want to develop SF HDR files in Photoshop.

[degrub]

One reason is if you don't have the SF tool to do the "development" of the raw images.

[Mark D Segal]

Mark, thanks for looking at this.

What you have just explained is what I understood from your SF Scanning book.

I don't know why anyone would want to develop SF HDR files in Photoshop.

Correct. There's no point. The least complicated way of processing the photo is to pre-plan which workflow you want and use it systematically from the get-go. People who want to edit in Photoshop may as well make a normal 48-bit gamma 2.2 scan and open it in Photoshop. People who want to use the SilverFast HDR workflow should make the scan in HDR mode and open it in SilverFast HDR. Both applications have a range of similar tools and a number of them In SilverFast are rather unique and very good; but Photoshop has vastly more, so people who need stuff that SilverFast HDR doesn't provide would use Photoshop.

[saiguy]

One reason is if you don't have the SF tool to do the "development" of the raw images.

If you have SF8 Ai, you can get HDR Studio for $50USD. At least I did a few years ago. There is only $50 difference in the full version prices. Talk with Kitten in sales.

It takes me 7 hours to batch scan 1 carousel of 140 slides. Takes another 14 hours to develop them in HDR. Aside from many benefits of the HDR RAW file, my scanner is running 7 hours rather than 21 hours.

Another BIG reason is that Photoshop can't make use of the iSRD dust & scratch removal function.

[Mark D Segal]

If you have SF8 Ai, you can get HDR Studio for $50USD. At least I did a few years ago. There is only $50 difference in the full version prices. Talk with Kitten in sales.

It takes me 7 hours to batch scan 1 carousel of 140 slides. Takes another 14 hours to develop them in HDR. Aside from many benefits of the HDR RAW file, my scanner is running 7 hours rather than 21 hours.

Another BIG reason is that Photoshop can't make use of the iSRD dust & scratch removal function.

For the benefit of those who may be prone to misunderstanding when it comes to SilverFast workflows, let's review a few facts about these procedures:

(a) Whether you scan in regular SilverFast Ai 8 48 bit format or you use SilverFast HDR 48 bit format, your end result is a rendered pixel-based file that has the same pixel dimensions. Neither is a raw file in the meaning the industry gives to "raw file" from digital cameras. The latter are not rendered into pixels, not demosaiced and are about 1/3 the document size of their rendered siblings. So for example, when you scan a 35mm transparency say in a Nikon SC-5000-ED scanner at its maximum theoretical resolution of 4000 PPI, at 100% image dimension, you end up with a document size of about 109 MB whether scanned in Ai8-48 bit format or HDR8 48 bit format. The differences between an Ai8 format scan and an HDR format scan are that the latter is: (a) in linear gamma (versus any other gamma you set, default is 2.2), (b) the embedded profile is the scanner profile (versus the working space profile, e.g. Adobe RGB98), (c) no pre-scan tone and colour editing permitted (versus any editing permitted).

(b) The time it takes to make this scan is about 38 seconds for the HDR 48 bit format and 30 seconds for the Ai8 48 bit format, again in a Nikon SC-5000-ED; (the Minolta Scan-Elite 5400 [version 1] is somewhat slower, but has higher and superior resolution]. This excludes editing in both workflows. Editing can take any amount of time depending on what you need to do with the photo. The editing tools are the same in SilverFast Ai8 as they are in SilverFast HDR8, so in principle there should be no difference in editing time between editing in the one version or the other of SilverFast for the same changes to the same photos.

(c) Whether you use either an HDR or non-HDR workflow in SilverFast you have access to the iSRD function for all scanner models that support an infrared channel and are supported by SilverFast (Saiguy is correct - Photoshop does not see an infrared channel so it is unavailable there). iSRD is the most refined and effective dirt and scratch removal tool on the market from all I've seen. If you need to use such a tool you would commission it at the scan stage if editing in SilverFast Ai8 or other non-SilverFast post-scan application, or post-scan in the HDR8 application if your post-processing will be in SilverFast HDR8. So one way or the other, you don't lose access to iSRD, whether your post-scan editing will be in a SilverFast product or a non-SilverFast product.

(d) Regarding workflow selection, the main thing you are advised NOT to do is use the HDR scan format in you will *not be* post-processing in SilverFast HDR. The attached image shows what happens in three workflow scenarios. (i) The far left panel shows that if you scan in HDR format and open the image in Photoshop, you get a dark mess than can be awkward to recover from - you can, but it's much more work than otherwise necessary and involves a lot of tone remapping; this happens because the scan is in linear gamma. (ii) If you intend to work in Photoshop you would scan in regular 48-bit format (non-HDR) and the result opened in Photoshop will be center panel. It needs some brightening-up but a far better starting point than the one to its left. (iii) If you intend to work in SilverFast HDR8 after scanning, you would make the scan in HDR format, and when opened in SilverFast HDR8, it will look like the image in the far right panel, which differs little from the rendition in the center panel.

Photoshop has a huge panoply of tools that SilverFast HDR does not have. The issue is whether or not you need them. If you don't, SilverFast HDR8 is a very capable image editor within its toolset. If you do need the additional stuff in Photoshop, may as well work from the start in Photoshop post-scan. Like so much in life, "it depends". There's no point being religious about software. Different tools have different capabilities (and a range of the same capabilities) so you pick and choose according to what gets your job done best and most efficiently relative to purpose and standards.

[Garnick]

Gary, a copule more thoughts. The Nikon 4000 I would think is a very good scanner. You said it is in good condition. I suggest you call LSI sales, make sure you are talking to Kitten, tell her your story and ask if you can get a loyal customer discount. You might be surprised.

If the 1680 scanner will not work on the latest OSX, do you really need the newest OS? Mark himself is still on El Capitan, which does have a rep for being VERY stable.

Also if you update your SF licenses to 8.8 r14 first, the Nikon 4000 demo might then work. After all it will likely put stuff into those shared folders, which is why you may not have been able to access your other versions.

As a total aside. My Nikon 9000 quit working yesterday giving Nikon FS errors. I talked to Kitten in a panic and asked if a Tech Support person was available and that I was willing to pay for same. She said Mr. Boris was on a call and would have him get to me when finished. In the mean time, she sent me the TeamViewer app, asked what the code #'s where so Boris you check into my situation. He took over my screen shortly later, scooped up some log files, had me open the Epson scanner, etc. and looked at a lot of stuff. Said he would send the info to Germany and call me about 9am next day. This morning I had an email, support ticket from the the Director of Support, Testing master, name Sonke Noack from Germany. He asked me to check into some things, etc. Turns out that when I changed out the old firewire cable and the thunderbolt adaptor to a different old firewire cable everything was working again.

My point here is that I have always been very impressed with LSI and how they treat there customers.

I've just been checking this thread again and realized that I hadn't yet read this post.  I did have a chuckle when you mentioned that I should perhaps be in touch with Kitten.  I'll just have to make sure that my wife is no where hear my computer when Kitten and I start swapping emails, if you know what I mean  .  That might require more explaining than that it's worth.  However, I will indeed make that call and see what the answer might be.  As I mentioned previously, I have been quite pleased and satisfied with the film scans from the V750, so I imagine it would have to be quite a hefty discount for me to latch onto the LSI driver for the Nikon scanner. 

In reference to HDR and LSI, I do not have the HDR version of Silverfast, but have been doing bracketed scans since before HDR was HDR I believe.  The first time was many years ago when doing some Kodachrome scans for a regular customer for whom I had done work dating back well before digital capture cameras.  She had a number of great shots of the slot canyons in the mid west States which had to be scanned and printed.  Of course in some cases the proper exposure for the canyon practically blew out some of the image where the suns rays entered.  Viewing the slides with a 10 X Loupe seemed to show absolutely no image information at all.  However, as I started to step back the scanning exposure I discovered some detail that was not available to the naked eye.  I made three exposures of each slide to work with.  In most cases the darkest scan was the one I used to stack with the internal canyon exposure and it worked very well, as I brushed in the detail that had been "recovered".  I have done that many times since with some almost unbelievable results when viewing the original slide.               

 All of this aside, I will be in touch again to let you know how Kitten and I got along and whether or not she was able make me an offer that I could not refuse.

Gary 

[Mark D Segal]

Gary, In SilverFastese, "HDR" has nothing to do with bracketed exposures. It's one scan that takes all the information available from what the scanner sees and puts it into a format intended to be used with their HDR8 application that also has nothing to do with blending bracketed exposures.

[Mark D Segal]

..................As I mentioned previously, I have been quite pleased and satisfied with the film scans from the V750, so I imagine it would have to be quite a hefty discount for me to latch onto the LSI driver for the Nikon scanner. ..........

Gary

Based on tests done using the LaserSoft Imaging version of the USAF 1951 resolution target, your V750 effectively resolves 43.5 lp/mm, while for the Nikon scanner (if we're talking about model SC-5000-ED), the effective resolution is 64 lp/mm, an add-on of 47%. This is resolution at the media. If you were to set a target resolution of 6 lp/mm on the print (a criterion that Eastman Kodak recommended in its technical publications on macro-photography based on viewing prints from 12 inches away), the allowed magnification ratios from media to print would be 7.2 from the V750 scanner and 10.7 from the Nikon scanner. With the long dimension of a 35mm slide being 1.4 inches, your V750 allows a print whose long dimension would be 10 inches, while your Nikon scanner would allow a long dimension of 15 inches. So whether the acquisition of the software for the Nikon scanner makes sense for you ultimately depends on how big you want to enlarge your negatives while meeting the 6 lp/mm print resolution criterion. Of course if you were to use a higher resolution criterion for print, the permissible magnification ratios and print dimensions would decrease relative to these numbers. There is a range of estimates in the literature regarding the limits of human visual resolution.

[saiguy]

Garnick.  I was only saying if you own a copy of SF8 Ai, you likely will be able to get HDR Studio for $50 more. If you have no SF8 license you will have to pay the $500.

Miss Kitten is no push over!

[Garnick]

Gary, In SilverFastese, "HDR" has nothing to do with bracketed exposures. It's one scan that takes all the information available from what the scanner sees and puts it into a format intended to be used with their HDR8 application that also has nothing to do with blending bracketed exposures.

Hi Mark,

Yes, I'm familiar with the basic procedure/concept of HDR in Silverfast, even though I do not own or use it.  What I was trying to do in my previous post was to explain the procedure I've been using for approximately 10 + years to recover otherwise blown out areas of a slide that cannot be seen with the naked eye.  I will say that when I first tried this procedure I was simply grasping at straws, since I could not see any detail in the almost white highlights of the slide, even with a 10 X Loupe.  It was a rather unexpected and much appreciated surprise to be able to recover areas of a slide that seemed to be totally lost to what one would probably refer to as severe over exposure.  Brings me back to Bob DeNatale's article here on LuLA about what he referred to as the "Optimum Exposure", and the results I proved with my own tests.  What the camera meter might determine to be the proper exposure was referred to by Bob as a rather gross underexposure.  His article is indeed an extension of ETTR, Michael's baby from a number of years ago, except that Bob pushed the limits farther and proved his theory, as did I and probably many others by doing our own tests.  Somewhat off topic here, but they do have a lot in common.

My Nikon scanner is the Super Cool Scan 4000 ED.

Gary

       

[Garnick]

Garnick.  I was only saying if you own a copy of SF8 Ai, you likely will be able to get HDR Studio for $50 more. If you have no SF8 license you will have to pay the $500.

Miss Kitten is no push over!

I have two SF8 licenses, so perhaps I will try the Kitten route, can't hurt.  Actually I had originally thought you were referring to the SF driver for the Nikon Scanner, since that was the main topic of the post you were replying to I assumed.  Now that would be a great discount.  However I think I will make the call and see if Miss Kitten can offer me a great deal on HDR at least.  By the way, should I simply ask for Mitt Kitten, or does she actually have a given name?

Gary

[saiguy]

Garnick. I only know her as Kitten and assume it is her first name. If you call her at LSI, 941-351-9400, hope this is current as it did change a while back, she should be able to get you HDR Studio for $50 as she did for me. She has been there for a long time and is very professional.

She should be able to pull up your credentials on the spot. HDR Studio will work for all your scanners outputs. Can be used for even any RGB files. Choose the "sales" option in their voice prompts and you should get her only. You may get a "leave a message", in which case I would just call back later.

An aside; I called her once with a "big order". One SilverFast mouse pad. She shipped it with a new reflective IT8 target and a note that she had noticed I hadn't updated mine for for a while.

[saiguy]

Garnick.  It is interesting that you mention the Nikon Driver. When I started this thread it was because I was too stupid to remember not to block the part of the flat bed scanner that is used for internal calibration with a ruler.

In my scramble to fix the situation, I downloaded the Nikon Driver form Nikon web site. Probably was the same one I already had as they are not supporting anything scanner now.

I assume that SilverFast contains a driver for my Nikon 9000.

Would you or Mark know if the driver is included in the SF8 software?

[Mark D Segal]

If you buy SilverFast Ai8 for Nikon 9000 everything you need in order to use that scanner is bundled in SilverFast.

[Garnick]

Garnick.  It is interesting that you mention the Nikon Driver. When I started this thread it was because I was too stupid to remember not to block the part of the flat bed scanner that is used for internal calibration with a ruler.

In my scramble to fix the situation, I downloaded the Nikon Driver form Nikon web site. Probably was the same one I already had as they are not supporting anything scanner now.

I assume that SilverFast contains a driver for my Nikon 9000.

Would you or Mark know if the driver is included in the SF8 software?

"I assume that SilverFast contains a driver for my Nikon 9000."  Hmmm...not sure what you mean by that.  As I read it I think you are asking if the Nikon Scanner software is included when you purchase Silverfast 8.x.  The answer to that question as I interpret it is no.  The Nikon Scanner driver is a separate app that Silverfast added to their rather large volume of scanner drivers.  For instance, I have two Epson flatbed scanners, which means I had to purchase two separate drivers.  The Silverfast driver for the Nikon Super CoolScan 4000 ED carries a Canadian price of almost $600, so I'll be passing on that.  If I do talk with Miss Kitten I'll also ask about that.  With the lower volume of film scanning now I cannot rationalize that cost, so I'll probably try to sell the Nikon Scanner if possible.

I hope I was able to answer your question.
Gary 

[Mark D Segal]

"I assume that SilverFast contains a driver for my Nikon 9000."  Hmmm...not sure what you mean by that.  As I read it I think you are asking if the Nikon Scanner software is included when you purchase Silverfast 8.x.  The answer to that question as I interpret it is no.  The Nikon Scanner driver is a separate app that Silverfast added to their rather large volume of scanner drivers.  For instance, I have two Epson flatbed scanners, which means I had to purchase two separate drivers.  The Silverfast driver for the Nikon Super CoolScan 4000 ED carries a Canadian price of almost $600, so I'll be passing on that.  If I do talk with Miss Kitten I'll also ask about that.  With the lower volume of film scanning now I cannot rationalize that cost, so I'll probably try to sell the Nikon Scanner if possible.

I hope I was able to answer your question.
Gary

Right. Nikon-made drivers are a thing of the past in the context of today's computer operating systems. When you buy SilverFast, unlike for Vuescan where one license gives access to all supported scanner models, you buy a separate license for each scanner. That license gives you access to one piece of software that does operate the one scanner model for which the software is licensed. Any one could look over both options and decide whether either or any of them are worthwhile.