17. July 2003
SilverFast Ai 6 - for Minolta Dimage Scan Multi PRO
The SilverFast Ai scanner software from German LaserSoft Imaging AG is now available for the Minolta Dimage Scan Multi PRO (Multi PRO) and this is very good news for current and coming owners of the Multi PRO film scanner.
This article is a combined review of and tutorial for the SilverFast Ai 6 scanner software with special focus on the Multi PRO film scanner.
Introduction
The Multi PRO scanner is capable of scanning a number of film formats, including 35mm and medium format up to 6x9cm. When it was introduced a while back, it was highly praised, but the software had a few problems when dealing with negatives. A group of users asked Minolta to look into the problems and Minolta answered their "prayers" and updated the software for better negative handling.
I myself did venture a bit into scanning negatives as well, but didn't manage to produce results that I was satisfied with. It's a long story, some of it can be read here.
While other scanners in the same league such as Nikon 8000 ED and Polaroid PrintScan 120 were supported by third party scanner software (and often bundled with different software solutions), the Multi PRO was only supported by the Minolta software itself - AND of course the excellent and cheap VueScan software which many users adopted I believe.
BUT this has now changed! The SilverFast Ai 6 software now supports the Multi PRO scanner. This means that users of the Multi PRO now has an alternative and professional software package to turn to. Having more software options is a real bonus to any scanner user.
I've tested the SilverFast Ai 6 for the Multi PRO and this and coming articles will describe my impressions as ell as show examples of how to use the software.
This article will focus on describing the products, it's features and the setup process as well as show some initial scanning examples. I will not, however, dig into scanning negatives here.
My review is done by showing examples of how to use the software. I'm not going to show all the tools and options - far from - but I'll give you some basic ideas of how to use the software. In later articles I'll demonstrate further options and tools.
SilverFast Products
"SilverFast" is actually the name of a number of related products from LaserSoft Imaging AG:
SilverFast Ai : Software for scanners. This is the package reviewed here.
SilverFast SE : Software for scanners - the light edition.
SilverFast DC : Software for digital cameras.
SilverFast HDR : Software for editing RAW 48bit data.
The SilverFast Ai 6 software is available for both Windows and Macintosh users at a price of $399 for the Dimage Scan Multi PRO version, including an IT8 target.
Features
Let me say right away that the SilverFast software is packed with tools, options and features. Some of them are related directly to scanning, while others are more in the direction of image manipulation.
Features includes:
 SRD™ Smart Removal of Defects. Dust and scratch removal tool.
 Selective Color Correction.
 ACR™ Adaptive Color Restoration. Restores faded colors etc.
 SC2G™ Selective Color to Gray. Color to gray conversion tool.
 GANE™ Grain And Noise Elimination. Reduces grain and noise artifacts.
 MidPip 4 Removes color casts from up to four areas.
 IT8 Calibration Use an IT8 color target to profile the scanner.
 NegaFix Scanning negatives and correction of the orange mask.
Besides the above mentioned "technologies" you have the following tools (and more):
Multiple scanning for enhancing shadow details by eliminating CCD noise.
Histogram adjustments.
Unsharp mask
RAW scans
Etc.
Read more about new features in the version 6 here.
In the box
Here is a picture of the content of the box:
Manual, software and in front the Feature CD with calibration software and IT8 targets.
The IT8 calibration targets and software is optional, but make sure you order that as well!
The printed manual is very helpful and it's advisable to study it carefully (also available as PDF document on the CD).
Getting Started
Installation
Installation is pretty much straightforward. You can choose between a TWAIN driver or a PhotoShop PlugIn. The latter can be run as a standalone application thanks to a little tool that will run the PlugIn.
In order for this little "loader app" to load the PhotoShop plugin you must browse to the Import/Export folder in the PhotoShop path. If you point directly to the Minolta Import/Expot folder, the application can not find the plugin(!)
I've almost exclusively used the software in this standalone mode, because I find it convenient.
On startup you are met by an interface looking something like this (here shown with a color target pre-scanned) :
A : Settings and tools window.
B : Preview window.
C : Scan pilot. This dialog will you automate your scans, by following a step by step approach.
D : Densitometer window.
E : Tools button. See below for more info.
F : Preview options. See below for more info.
The feature disk
Before doing anything else now, we will update the SilverFast software with a "feature disk" in this case the calibration software (which you of course remembered to order along with the main program).
You insert the disk and press the button with an "i" on - the first button in the line of preview tool-buttons:
This will lead you to an upgrade dialog in which you type in the new registration code that went along with the feature CD.
When this is done (you might want to follow the instructions i the manual), you will have a new button in the preview toolbar for making IT8 calibration:
Calibration
Now that we have all the software installed, it is time for profiling the scanner.
About Calibration and Profiling
Each color device - be it input or output - attached to the computer will render colors in different ways. Often the technology for showing colors are very different; a printer uses ink, a screen uses phosphores that lights up or maybe liquid crystals in LCD displays.
The CCD of the scanner has it's own unique way of seeing colors, but the software can not know exactly how the scanner "sees" colors, so we need to feed it with a color target. The color target consists of a number of color patches with "known" values. With each color target there is a file describing what the colors are "supposed" to look like. The calibrating software can then use the scanned image and the file with color target information to create a profile of the scanner.
This profile is then used to convert the output from the scanner into the correct colors.
Before we calibrate
Before we start the calibration and profiling process, there are a number of settings I like to alter for my first scan example.
I'm going to scan my picture as "RAW" as possible. This means that I'm NOT using any of the image optimizing tools for this first example.
Film type
Select the General tab and select Positive film:
(You can choose to save these settings by choosing Save in the Frame-Set combo box)
HDR output
On the Frame tab you select the 48 Bit HDR in the Scan Type combo box:
(You can choose to save these settings by choosing Save in the Setting combo box)
"HDR" is the RAW format and will give us the unchanged data from the scanner (well, almost. More on that later).
Notice how the tool-buttons at the top - for auto-adjustment and histogram etc. - are now grayed out and not available.
Options
Now click the Option button in the lower right corner of the dialog window and select the General tab:
The important setting for my first example here is the Gamma Gradiation. This tells the program what gamma to apply to the RAW output from the scanner. This deserves an explanation:
The direct hardware output from the scanner is normally a linear one with a gamma of 1. That output will produce a very dark looking picture with oversaturated colors. We can let the software alter this by selecting a gamma that is closer to the gamma of the screen and thereby we get a better looking image. Not with correct colors, but just closer to what we want.
As far as I can see, SilverFast base the calibration on the "gamma corrected" output and it is a bit hard to profile the linear output because of the very dark colors, so we better stick to something around a gamma of 2 (1.8 - 2.2...).
Finally I've checked the for HDR output checkbox as well, to let this gamma correction influence the HDR RAW output files that I'm about to create in a short while.
[Update 18.11.03] : Ian Lyons, Computer-Darkroom.com digs a bit deeper into the issue of selecting the best gamma gradation here.
Color management
Select the CMS tab and make it look like this:
This means that all color management is turned OFF.
Yes, this is an unorthodox approach, but I'm about to make a point here and demonstrate the fundamental functionality that scanner software should be able to deliver, so please bear with me for a while.
Calibrate
Now we are ready to start the calibration process.
Take an IT8 target and put it into the scanner:
(Yes, I always wear cotton gloves when dealing with transparencies)
In this case I've used the 6x7 target, but a 35mm target will do just fine.
Press the button : and follow the instructions.
Yes, we do get a warning that we turned of color management, but don't worry, just proceed.
It's very important that the software finds the correct description file for the target. When I calibrated the software found and downloaded the correct file itself making the procedure simple and straightforward.
When we are done, go back to the Color management settings and make sure it looks like this:
Here we instruct the software to embed the profile that we just created into the final scan - the tiff file.
Our first scan
Prescan
Make the transparency ready and slide it into the scanner. Observe that SilverFast recognizes the type of picture you are about to scan (what "sledge" you slide in). It also remembers the settings for the sledge, so make sure the settings are what you want before you scan.
Press the PreScan button.
Focusing
SilverFast give Multi PRO users the option of selecting the autofocus area, but the software does not offer manual focus. Not a big sacrifice, I can live with the autofocus only as long as I get to decide where to focus (which I do).
Image size
SilverFast offers a number of ways for setting the image size that you are about to scan.
An important factor to understand is the so-called Q-factor. The basic idea is, that you type in the size of the picture you will "publish" and the number of lines per inch (lpi) of your image setter produces and then you multiply with the Q-factor to make sure your image is big enough, but not too big.
Now, I'm going to use a photo printer or maybe the screen and very often I don't know the exact size(s) I will use the picture in and I can therefore choose to scan at the highest resolution my scanner is capable of.
To make it easier for myself, I therefore use a quality factor of 1 and simply set the DPI to whatever I want (1600, 2400 or 3200 or any other size).
Scan
Press the scan button!
The result is a very color accurate picture. I'm not saying that nothing more can be done, but it's a good starting point (a bit of sharpening was added after the resize). I've shown the histogram of the picture below :
Summarize 1
What I just showed you here is EXACTLY what I want my scanner software to be capable of - and SilverFast delivers!
But what went on? How can turning of color management be any good?
Well, it's a matter of taste, but if all we need is to make UNCORRECTED scans directly from the scanner for later processing in imaging software, all we need is a RAW-file with a profile attached.
Then all color managed imaging software will know how to deal with the colors. When you open this file in Photoshop or Picture Window Pro or even SilverFast HDR, you can choose to leave it as it is or convert it to the working color space - AND you will get correct colors, because we profiled the scanner!
I'm VERY pleased that SilverFast can do this, if this is all you need. However, SilverFast is capable of MUCH more, but this basic starting point (calibrate and profile, scan and embed profile) is THE most important capability of scanner software - in my humble opinion that is.
Unfortunately the Minolta software isn't capable of this. You need at least three different programs to do this, namely a profiler, the scanner software AND imaging software that will attach he profile to the scanned image (Arrgh !)
Of course the people at LaserSoft knows that the software must be capable of these basic tasks.
Well done LaserSoft!
Moving on
Color management
Well, let's turn some color management on, and let us convert our scans to the Adobe RGB color space which can be used in Picture Window Pro or Adobe Photoshop.
This is how it looks in the settings dialog:
I did NOT choose a printer (output) profile, because I want the output to be Adobe RGB and not a printer profile. I could also select a printer profile and have the scan converted directly into that for direct output to paper.
Every time we scan now, our picture will be CONVERTED to the Adobe RGB color space, which is widely used as a working color space.
I will also now change the Scan Type from 48 bit HDR to 48 bit Colour.
This setting will now give us access to all the tools in SilverFast.
What I want now is just to try the Image Auto-Adjust button:  and see what it does to my picture.
The Image Adjust button is auto adjusting highlights, midtones and shadows, based on what Image Type you select:
For this example I've just used Standard
The picture got ever so slightly more light and the histogram got somewhat more distributed and less "peaky" in the dark end (and not clipped).
I'm happy with this result.
Summarize 2
The last example shows a different approach to scanning. We let the scanner software handle everything from scanning the raw image to converting to another colorspace and to dealing with highlights and shadows.
I like the result from the last example, although example 1 with the RAW output is closer to my preferred way of working with scanner software.
Problems?
Here and there there are a few things that I would like to be optimized in SilverFast.
You can not resize the cropping frame in the corners, you have to drag either side of the cropping frame. This is no big deal, just a bit annoying.
There are a lot of buttons and dials and the icons aren't that clear al the time. But of course this problem arise when there are so many options. However a more menu-oriented approach would be nice to see. The ScanPilot is there to help you through, but I would rather have a more intuitive interface.
It feels a bit like the original and intuitive interface has gotten to complex by the number of options and tools now available to the user(?)
The speed of the scanning process is a bit on the slow side, but I won't make any comparison test here, because I used an old Windows 98 machine with SCSI connection. I should really try the FireWire instead and I probably will at a later point.
Final comments
I will not call this section "Conclusion" because there are so many corners of the program I didn't test or even mention here, like the NegaFix feature for negatives. A very important tool that I will give a review of at a later point.
However, with the tests in mind that we did perform above, the question arises of how to actually use scanner software and how you prefer to work with scanner software.
SilverFast clearly gives you all the possibilities; you can work with the RAW output alone or you can let SilverFast alter your image in a multitude of ways.
It's all up to you!
Update [25.08.03]:
SilverFast : The official Guide - is now ready. Click to learn more:
Links
• LaserSoft Visit the LaserSoft site.
• Reviews & Tutorials Links to a number of other online reviews & tutorials.
|
|
|
