VueScan Big Picture Suggestions Wanted

[steve]

Right. Away with all those silly profiles, brightness, colour, and gamma
controls. Shove pure 48 bit raw data into Photoshop and let them cope
with it. Oh, and don't forget cropping can be done just as easily in any
old graphics program.

Ralf

Ralf, that's fine if you can afford a copy of Photoshop to correct
brightness, colour and gamma etc.

I prefer those controls to be available within VueScan. It's a matter
of user choice, you don't have to use all the functionality available
if you don't want to. For those that do, it would be available.

I'm new to scanning, using the Minolta 5400 and VueScan Pro
for just a little over 3 weeks now. I don't bother using the Minolta
software anymore. Still learning.

Keep up the good work Ed

Steve.O.

Remove film from email address before replying.

 

[Ralf R. Radermacher]

I'm new to scanning, using the Minolta 5400 and VueScan Pro
for just a little over 3 weeks now.

That should explain it. Otherwise you would have known me as one of the
people who've been consistently asking for curves over the last few
years. So much so that I do become a little sarcastic, at times,
especially when people again think they need to tell me what I want or
don't.

That clear now? Fine.

Ralf

 

[Maris V. Lidaka Sr.]

A thought re "Curves" and "Better manipulation of histogram" - perhaps a
compromise by adding a third, middle/center adjustment point? Contrast and
saturation controls could be helpful (though I would not use them
personally, many do).

I like the "Wizard for setting orange mask of films" idea - I find the
"Advanced Workflow Suggestions" to be the best for scanning almost every
film, and a built-in wizard would be very convenient, rather than printing
out and/or memorizing the workflow to follow it.

My late 2 cents.

Maris

 

[Carsten Schurig]

Include VueScan in major linux distributions.

Yes, definetly! I think, vuescan is just *unknown* to many Linux users.
They're chosing a scanner working with sane and are happy with it... :-(

Carsten

 

[Christian Tsotras]

I've summarized below the feedback I got from responses here and
responses by e-mail.

About curves, I think there are two different needs:

.. The new users that would need a simple way to do curve adjusting without
boring with another software

.. The power users that don't have Photoshop CS and would need a full 48bit
curves tool

I'm from the second category, I use Gimp on Linux, and Cinepaint (48bit
management, Linux) is not very "photo users friendly".

So you could satisfy both categories with a 48 bit tool, just on the same
window with histograms, while seeing the "before curve" and "after curve"
histograms.


Another suggestion:

Add an equivalent of Nikon's DEE (shadow enhancement).


It's a lot of work, but if you could also further improve IR cleaning
(I have a Nikon LS5000) as well as Minolta's or Nikon's algorithms do, I
would be ready to buy a new license of Vuescan, although I am a very old
user that has an unlimited license.



Thanks for all your work, and for continuing the Linux version.

 

[Bart van der Wolf]

Erik Krause wrote: SNIP
But I guess an overexposed area is needed in a slide in
order to obtain useful results with the advanced workflow.
I agree that this film-base color business needs beter
documentation. For instance, how much of a slide needs to
be overexposed, and do you need a completely unexposed
part of a negative film to make it work?

It's really not that difficult. Just crop an area (can be a small
area) that is totally overexposed on slides (leader), or totallty
unexposed on negatives (inter-image space). This will represent the
minimum density (maximum transmission) of the film+processing. That
area is used to optimize exposure (maximum exposure without clipping),
and given that exposure level to determine it's 'color' as seen by the
scanner. That will allow to subtract that 'color' in linear gamma
space from all other readings, thus producing neutral highlights in
slides and neutral shadows in color negatives if the subject is
neutral.

That practically pegs one end of the histogram to accurate color
rendition, leaving the other end to be color adjusted. If the film is
rather neutral throughout its density range, that will get all colors
close to 'perfect', and only subjective color adjustment (e.g. blue
shadows) is left to get the colors 'right'. Then tonescaling is needed
to fit the scene dynamic range in a limited output dynamic range

Bart

 

[Bart van der Wolf]

SNIP

Another suggestion:
Add an equivalent of Nikon's DEE (shadow enhancement).

Yes, that's an example of what I meant with "novel tonescaling
functionality" to augment Curves. I've mentioned alternative
approaches to do that in the past, specifically through histogram
adjustment that compresses dynamic range in parts of the Cumulative
histogram.

Bart

 

[Christian Tsotras]

Yes, that's an example of what I meant with "novel tonescaling
functionality" to augment Curves. I've mentioned alternative approaches
to do that in the past, specifically through histogram adjustment that
compresses dynamic range in parts of the Cumulative histogram.

Sure, it would be interesting to have more control on this new "DEE" than
just an on/off push-button. I'm the first interested in this kind of
enhancements, but do you think Ed has the time to develop these ?

I suppose these represent some complex mathematical processes, and opposed
to Nikon or Minolta that have many developpers, is Ed capable to invest
time on this ?

I hope so, but I don't know. Only Ed can answer.

For example, Vuescan's IR cleaning needed "some" time and many versions to
be efficient (though still not perfect), whereas it was almost perfect
with Minolta or Nikon softwares.

 

[WD]

Regarding the proposed feature:

Support for ASF scanning libraries for GEM and ICE

just want to make sure everyone (especially with Nikon Scanners) understands
that the implication here is that the performance of IR cleaning (ICE) and
grain filtering (GEM) would in theory be indentical or on par to that done with
the scanner vendors package.

W

 

[Erik Krause]

I think Curves in VueScan would be a classic example of bloat.
If VueScan is a scanning application and not a replacement for
Photoshop, then this feature is entirely redundant.

Curves are necessary, simply to compete with other scanning
applications...

 

[Erik Krause]

. The power users that don't have Photoshop CS and would need a full 48bit
curves tool

There is no problem using curves on 48bit images in photoshop 5.5, 6 or
7. It's only gimp that still does not support 48bit...

 

[Erik Krause]

I assume you put this in here for discussion, hence a few comments...
(Lines reordered)

7 Curves

Yes, curves. If I remember correctly the problem was that you didn't
know how to use curves for multiple images especially when batch
scanning. I think useres should vote: Do they need curves for
individual adjustments, or do they need it for general, batch
applicable adjustments?

5 Persistent .ini files between versions Urgent!

4 More documentation & improved User's Guide Urgent!

3 Task Wizards

....would help to clean up tab pages (no more anytime "Show IT8
outline").

3 Better manipulation of histogram
Levels (like in Photoshop)

Yes, as floating non modal dialogs with a "preview" checkbox, just like
in Photoshop.

3 User interface cosmetic changes

Good for new users, would go together with task wizards.

2 Contrast and saturation controls like brightness control

Hmmm. I don't use this and I don't like it. Can be achieved with
curves...

2 Scratch removal/grain reduction (without IR in scanner)

Dangerous. There is no way to do this without detail loss although
Vuescan has the advantage of knowing film type, film base color and
film black color (Anything that is darker than slide film border must
be a defect).

2 Faster updating of preview window and saving

Would be nice.

Wizard for setting orange mask of films
Using analog gain to correct for film base color

A wizard would help new users. Analog gain calculation from film base
color would be a step to own film profiles. Both could be easily
implemented in one wizard.

Better scratch removal (with IR in scanner)
Better IR cleaning (like Photoshop healing tool)

This would beat ICE

Fast 1:1 zoom

would be fine

Eliminate confusion from separate Slide & Image settings

Better documentation of what film base color is and what it is used for
(Slide setting only useful with advanced workflow).

Option for noise reduction in shadow areas

Hmmm. There are applications that do a very sophisticated noise
analysis and correction (Neat Image, Noise Ninja).

Photoshop plugin
TWAIN interface

I like to work in photoshop while the film scans in the background.
This would not be possible with a plugin or a twain driver.

Customizable menus and tool bars
Configurable button bar

Would be fine. But if, please persistent during version changes.

Improve strip film frame offset on Nikon scanners Urgent!

Color correction of individual frames in a batch scan

Would be nice.

 

[Erik Krause]

I implemented this in the change from 7.6.84 to 8.0. The old
.ini files from 7.6.84 should work in 8.0, and I hope to continue
this.

Very good to hear. You should have put it on the change log

 

[Erik Krause]

Sure, it would be interesting to have more control on this new "DEE" than
just an on/off push-button.

If you're on photoshop you might have a look at
http://www.erik-krause.de/contrast

I'm the first interested in this kind of
enhancements, but do you think Ed has the time to develop these ?

There are numerous algorithms published, you only have to go and pick
one: http://www.cs.bris.ac.uk/Publications/Papers/1000680.pdf This
document is from 2002. Meanwhile there are some more...

I suppose these represent some complex mathematical processes, and opposed
to Nikon or Minolta that have many developpers, is Ed capable to invest
time on this ?

He wanted Big Suggestions. I think he knows that this means Big Work in
most cases...

 

[Wilfred]

It's really not that difficult. Just crop an area (can be a small
area) that is totally overexposed on slides (leader), or totallty
unexposed on negatives (inter-image space).

Bart, I understand this theory. Yet, I have the impression that the
results are better when just a part of the selected area on the negative
is unexposed. An explanation could be that VueScan doesn't 'know' that
the whole selected area is supposed to represent the minimum density of
the film. After all, the user doesn't specify in advance that s/he is
going to follow the 'advanced workflow'.

 

[Wilfred]

Curves are necessary, simply to compete with other scanning
applications...

If curves are included, it would be nice if the effect of the curves
adjustment on the image histogram could be visualized. A combined
levels/curves adjustment would be interesting. After all, the white
point and the black point can also be set by adjusting curves. Including
a central gamma slider might be a problem, though.

 

[Ed Hamrick]

Note: This may be true for the most frequent users (the ones visiting the
newsgroup very often). But I think it will attract more NEW customers, and
that's quite important isn't it?

The conclusion I've come to is that making VueScan easier to use
for beginning users is by far the most important change I can
make. I'm now thinking about task-specific guides (Wizards)
and how to integrate them with VueScan.

Regards,
Ed Hamrick

 

[Matthew Rex]

A few statistics - 6% of the VueScan downloads are for the Linux
version, but only 1.6% of the VueScan purchases are for the Linux
version.

It would be useful to get big picture suggestions for how to increase
the percentage of Linux downloads and purchases.

If Linux had a colour management system, I suspect there would be a lot
more people using Vuescan and GIMP under Linux. As it is, you have to
switch to Windows and PS, so it's just easier to run Vuescan on Winodows
as well.

So, building a CMS for the linux/Xorg would do it for me

 

[Pasi Savolainen]

A few statistics - 6% of the VueScan downloads are for the Linux
version, but only 1.6% of the VueScan purchases are for the Linux
version.

I'd say Linux users are more aware about possibility and need to update
installed programs.

FWIW, the installation I personally use is of corporate origin and
probably bought as a windows-entitled version.

It would be useful to get big picture suggestions for how to increase
the percentage of Linux downloads and purchases.

As somebody already mentioned, many are quite unaware about non-free
software for linux. Vuescan would probably gain more users if it was
available for install with distribution.
Getting aboard with distributions could be helped by offering some
minimal version that produces usable results for free, gratis. Possibly
nagware style? This is hard road to follow as 'crippled' often comes to
mind as a first suitable adjective.
Pre-packaged and system-integrated (included in menus and as icon)
packages could also help in overcoming initial misgivings. I personally
can donate Debian packaging.

As a whole, vuescan is in pretty good shape, only intuition-connected
levels-control is missing.

 

[Carsten Schurig]

If Linux had a colour management system, I suspect there would be a lot
more people using Vuescan and GIMP under Linux. As it is, you have to
switch to Windows and PS, so it's just easier to run Vuescan on Winodows
as well.

So, building a CMS for the linux/Xorg would do it for me

It's being worked on. See little-cms for instance. If you need work on
image with a higher color depth, have a look at cinepaint. The dev
process seems to be a bit slow, thoug, but AFAIK there's currently work
going on into the integration of gimp-print/gutenprint and cinepaint has
a basic cms capability.

So *I* think there's much available concerning CMS under Linux. As I see
it now the integration of the tools is the main problem. Maybe there
need to be more volunteers, which really need CMS...

Carsten