Vuescan custom media size manual#
Vuescan custom media size full#
Vuescan custom media size windows 10#

Button colors vary for no logical reason, and active functions are indicated only with a tiny red dot.

Vuescan custom media size manual#

Manual mode gives access to everything at once, but is very busy and unnecessarily confusing. (And quite a few are duplicates, increasing the clutter.) SilverFast's user interface is packed with buttons and controls, not all of them intuitively named or labeled. Some choices feel odd, though: For example it won't allow you to simply scan a standard JPEG. WorkFlowPilot only allows single-photo scanning, and takes you through the process step by step. SilverFast has only two operating modes: WorkflowPilot or Manual. SilverFast is powerful, but overly dense and confusing Overall, it's reasonably usable but not great.

For example, no matter how I configured Windows' resolution and scaling, its un-resizable configuration dialog overflowed its borders, preventing me from being able to do things like reset app defaults.

Vuescan custom media size full#

Optional Full Auto and Home modes simplify things, but also hide many features altogether. No matter how I set Windows 10's resolution and scaling, I couldn't access the reset button on this non-resizable configuration dialog. It's split across five floating control panels that, together, don't leave much room to preview your slides, yet still offers fewer controls than its third-party rivals.

As you can see, there's not much space for your photos.Īs is often the case with software from hardware manufacturers, Epson Scan's Professional Mode user interface feels quite dated and somewhat unintuitive. Epson Scan feels a bit dated and lacks some featuresĮpson Scan shown in Professional mode with all windows open except the configuration dialog. Let's start off by looking at interfaces. Since I'm looking at this from the perspective of film scanning, I'm limiting my comparisons solely to scanning of positive and negative strip film and slides, and won't be considering features like document or photo print scanning, copying, OCR, and the like. VueScan Professional, meanwhile, is ordinarily $99.95.

SilverFast SE Plus costs $99, although it was included free in the bundle with our Epson V850 Pro.

Vuescan custom media size windows 10#

We understand it addresses some of our concerns, but have not yet tested it ourselves.Īll three applications were tested with Windows 10 version 1909 on a 2018 Dell alongside an Epson Perfection V850 Pro scanner. Unfortunately, SilverFast version 9 was issued after this article had been completed, but before it made it through our edit queue. To do so, I compared Epson Scan 3.9.3.4 – which comes bundled with the company's Perfection-series photo scanners and seems nicely representative of manufacturer-supplied software – with two of the most popular third-party alternatives, LaserSoft Imaging's SilverFast SE Plus 8.8.0r22 and Hamrick Software's VueScan Professional Edition 9.7.35. If you're like me, you probably still have years' worth of unscanned slides and negatives waiting to be tended to some rainy day, and a COVID lockdown gives you a golden opportunity.īut are you better off using the software that came with your scanner, or should you shell out for a third-party alternative to get the best results? Before I rolled up my sleeves and started scanning, I wanted to answer this question for myself. A difficult 2020 that has blended into a difficult 2021 has made it harder for many of us to get outside and shoot, but that doesn't mean you have to neglect your photography.