Software for scanning? Epson vs Vue Scan vs Silver Fast

[rmargolis]

Hello photographers who scan negatives:

I have recently purchased an Epson V550 and a glass negative holder (because 6x6 negatives are difficult to flatten). I have used the Epson-included software. What are the advantages, if any, of Silver Fast or Vue Scan. I shoot mostly with Portra and some Tri-X, both 35mm and 6x6. I edit the images in Lightroom so can make adjustments there. At this point I view the scanning software as just that, achieving a scan representative of the negative I'm scanning.

Thanks in advance for wisdom and knowledge. People on this forum are generous and I appreciate it.

Roberta Margolis

[Geoff F]

I just make a few basic adjustments in the way of brightness and colour correction, where necessary, using Curves etc, then scan directly to a holding file; from which I do all my editing with a proper photo editor. I use Adobe Photoshop CC but Lightroom would make a suitable alternative.

The editing software which comes with a scanner won't be as good as Lightroom etc anyway.

I always disable any of the auto 'improvements' before scanning.

[loosecanon]

silverfast uses IR or total black to detect dust and repair the image. Slows down scanning considerably.

[dennybeall]

The quality of the scan is most important to me. I've used Epson scanners and printers since the printer was an 8 pin dot matrix and Epson makes very good products. Most cost increases in scanners today are more about speed of scan than quality of scan.
For me I want a straight scanner without any processing since I'm going to feed the file into Photoshop.