Is there a slide scanner out there that has reliable autoexposure controls? I hate to keep beating this horse, but from what I have seen in here, most share the same problem. Earlier I mentioned my Dimage Scan Speed and saw some interesting responses, and have received some helpful answers.

I'm a veteran of Nikon and Microtek slide scanners, and now Minolta. The Nikon would never focus properly, and the Microtek didn't have the rez high enough for printing. Do I need a Polaroid Sprint Scan?

What burns me is that a friend of mine scanned some identical slides with an HP-20S, with NO ADJUSTMENTS and they looked just fine. However, with it's 2400dpi max, it may not be the best for printing.

Please guide me folks...

-- MikeB (airlinestuff@yahoo.com), May 09, 2000

Answers

I find that using autoexposure controls on my Minolta Dual or Minolta Elite a little bit like using auto levels in Photoshop. The results are so and so, and I hardly ever use it. Using levels and curves in the scanning software gives far better results, as it does in Photoshop. In my experience, concentrate on getting the whole tonal range of the image by using the scanning software (not autoexposure), and then concentrate on fixing colour casts and other things in Photoshop. cannot expect a scanner to

-- Gretar Ivarsson (gretar.ivarsson@or.is), May 10, 2000.

Try Ed Hamrick's VueScan software. This automatically applies a correction based on a profile for each scanner that it supports. I'm pretty sure the Scan speed is supported.... Yep, it is, I've just checked.

Ed's VueScan page is here

It costs nothing to download the demo version, and registration isn't too expensive either.

-- Pete Andrews (p.l.andrews@bham.ac.uk), May 10, 2000.

That was great to learn about the VueScan software. I'd just about given up on getting decent results from my ScanSpeed, but I dl'ed VueScan and it's excellent. Too bad Minolta can't provide decent software for it's own products, but I'm glad somebody else can.

-- John Woram (jworam@msn.com), May 10, 2000.

Having just received a Nikon LS2000, and experimented with both NikonScan and Silverfast's software/drivers I would say the quality and reliability of the auto-exposure is wholly dependant upon the software.

With difficult slides, the auto-toools in NikonScan had great problems, either lifting shadow detail but losing highlights or creating too great a contrast in the images. And the level of control available with the Levels & Curves tools within NikonScan could not overcome the basic problem with the image without losing detail.

SilverFast however managed to optimise itself for each image automatically, almost to the point of needing no further manual ammendments. Detail was captured both in the shadows and in the highlights simultaneously.

If you can get Silverfast for your scanner, i can't recommend it highly enough.The moral of the story i think is to try and get the best scanning software available for your particular scanner. For me it was the difference between being disappointeed in my new purchase, and being blown away by the results.

When are manufatcurer's going to realise this and put out decent drivers / software with their scanners.

All the best

-- Martin Ellis (inca@globalnet.co.uk), May 12, 2000.