Thanks Fernando for your great answers. Normally I would try out a sw to
find these answers myself. But VueScan's documentation and user
interface are challenging to understand and use, to say the least. There
is never any description what the program is doing with each setting,
and an user never knows whether it is controlling the hw or mugging with
the sw. VueScan may be perfect for those who are willing to accept the
program's attitude of "figure it out yourself, dummy" or "just trust
me". But in order to look underneath the hood, it would have taken me a
lot of time and effort to experiment to find the answers.
I see that. Unfortunately, even the very pricey Silverfast AI (that I
consider the best scanning software ever) lacks in the documentation
department. By reading it many times and experimenting, you get it in
the end, but better documentation never hurts.
I like Vuescan a lot whith other scanners of mine (Epson 2450,
Polaroid SS120), but at present, I don't recommend it with the Minolta
DSE5400: it simply can't deliver the quality this scanner is capable
of.
If your budget allows it, try Silverfast AI 6 (not SE: at that point,
you may better stay with M.S.U.). It really extracts all the quality
from the 5400, that is a very, very capable machine.
But try the demo first: it has issues on my machine, freezing up
without apparent reasons.
In the meanwhile, myself and other Vuescan users will continue to try
and convince Ed Hamrick that DSE5400 support should improve quite a
bit.
Trying, can't hurt.
Bye,
Fernando