Vuescan is one of the most comprehensive film and slide scanning programs available, equipped with everything an enthusiast might require – including inbuilt ICC profiling (you simply provide an IT8 target and Vuescan creates a correction table and profile).
Filters exist to restore colors and faded images, reduce grain, and sharpen. There’s also optical character recognition (OCR) for text documents as well as flexible file management features.
Basic
VueScan’s default settings aim to capture all of the tonal range that a negative can offer without clipping shadows or oversaturating highlights, which may make the resultant scans appear flatter than usual, but will allow for greater editing flexibility in post production software.
Vuescan offers more complex interface options than most scanner software packages, with multiple sliders and options that require some practice to master. However, all options are clearly labeled and over time the interface becomes intuitive and effortless for use.
Once your options are in place, scanning is simple. You can choose to scan multiple frames at once or select an individual image at full resolution; after each scan completes VueScan displays a preview so you can decide which image should be saved to disk.
Once uploaded, images are then processed to produce their final scans, including dust removal, color restoration and applying film characteristics. Two histograms are displayed; one showing raw image data while the other displays what will be saved as corrected image data. You may adjust either histogram for individual image, although there’s no midtone adjustment feature; this limitation should still leave most users satisfied with their scan results.
Standard
Hamrick Software knows exactly what people expect of a scanning application and has delivered. Their basic interface offers only the essential options and provides on-screen operating instructions for novice users, while as you gain experience moving up to Standard mode opens four more tabs with additional controls and tabs with various additional tabs of options available to you.
Utilizing these tools can enable you to produce high-quality scans that require little or no editing in Lightroom or Photoshop, with VueScan making it simple for saving files as JPEGs which take up only 10% of disk space compared with TIFF and BMP file types.
Before scanning, VueScan lets you set the image size, output folder and other settings that can help speed up workflow. After completion of scanning, the resultant file can automatically be moved into its designated folder for easier workflow management.
VueScan allows you to set an ideal exposure value on each film frame, saving time when scanning rolls of film and decreasing the chance of missing or overexposing an image. In addition, color negatives can have their base colors preserved during digital post processing.
VueScan works on Mac, Windows and Linux operating systems – making it the perfect choice for those using multiple computers. Available both as an individual purchase or subscription plan and including free updates for up to a year after initial activation.
Advanced
VueScan is an advanced program that is perfect for flatbed scanners, film and slide scanners and automatic document feeders, providing optical character recognition (OCR) of text documents. It’s simple to use and compatible with most scanners; with advanced features that deliver scans with high quality and color fidelity; even restore faded colors back into vibrant hues while batch scanning operations.
User interface is straightforward, though it may take time to learn all the options and sliders. Everything is clearly labeled, making learning them simpler with practice. Any changes made can be saved to default settings for use later if a scanning job arises that requires specific configuration settings.
One of the more helpful advanced features is locking an exposure value for specific film types to save time when scanning an entire roll. This feature helps prevent over- or underexposure of film, and reduces time spent editing images in image editing software.
VueScan supports several image formats, such as JPEG and TIFF, as well as PDF conversion. Furthermore, it allows you to save scanned images into either one file or multiple folders and automatically naming files with prefix/suffixes or suffices that you specify.
Final Words
VueScan’s Output tab lets you set different options for how files created through scanning are named and where they should be saved. Use a visual file/folder navigation window to set the default destination, or use special characters for creating unique names for individual output files. In addition, set whether VueScan should include timestamps in file names as well as their storage location on your computer.
VueScan allows you to write an index file for each cropped image it scans, making them easily navigable using word processing programs such as Microsoft Word or most Mac OS X and Linux word processors. This option is particularly helpful if your program relies on databases for text storage – for instance Microsoft Word uses such databases.
The Raw Output with DNG Format option saves raw data files in Digital Negative (DNG) format that can be read by Adobe’s Camera Raw plugin, making this option especially helpful for post processing with this format. When combined with “Lock Exposure”, this setting produces images with equal exposure on all film or slides.