Silverfast Ai 6.0

[KevinBE]

Thought I would post something that came up recently with Silverfast Ai 6.0. It seems to work just fine for scanning positive transparencies. But it simply SUCKS!!! when it comes to negative transparencies! Until recently I had scanned negatives with Silverfast and had color balance and exposure problems but thought that it was the old faded negatives I was scanning that were to blame. I tried to scan some shots I made recently with my A1 and was terribly dissappointed!

I switched over to the twain software and it performed flawlessly. In fact the twain software was a real gem to use. You can set the exposure settings on each frame and then let it scan the batch unattended. I know that Silverfast us supposed to also have this feature but it is a learned function not the default like it is in the twain driver.

I like Silverfast for flatbed scanning it does a great job. But for negatives it simply does a very poor job.

[Doug Nelson]

I hope you don't mind me splitting this off and moving it, but I'd love to see people's views on Silverfast. I was really looking forward to using it, and to this day I see people applauding it. But I really prefer the plain old scanner manufacturer (in my case Epson) interface and Photoshop.

Is this a matter of preference, or do I not "get it" when it comes to the advantages of Silverfast? Does it actually tweak the scanner controls, or does it simply filter the raw scanfile like PS would?

[KevinBE]

Hi Doug, I'm sorry I didn't pick up on the thread move. I just assumed it hadn't posted because of the server move.

Don't get me wrong I really love what Silverfast AI does with flatbed scans. And to answer your question on how it makes the adjustments, I believe that it uses filters. It has a very advanced dust&scratches filter, an acurate color balance correction using levels, and a very good curves adjustment.

The twain driver software has all the necessary filtering as well it's just not as easy to use or as advanced as Silverfast. Silverfast also has a much better sharpening tool as the twain driver simply has one setting for USM and it usually isn't good enough for me.

Anyway I am glad I did spend the money for the AI version. It's not perfect but neither is any other program I've ever seen.