This tab contains the options that control the inputs to VueScan from scanners, raw scan files and digital camera files.
Use this option to indicate what task you're performing. You can choose from "Scan to file", "Copy to printer", "Profile scanner", "Profile printer", "Profile film" and "Make IT8 target".
A brief reminder of how to do each task is displayed in the lower left corner of the window.
You can have more than one scanner on your system, and this lets you specify which scanner you want to use.
A special "scan from" source is from a disk file. On the "Output" tab, VueScan provides a special option to save the raw output of a regular scan to a file. This option lets you read that raw file as though you were scanning from your hardware.
If you set this option to "File", then you'll be able to enter a file name in the "Input|Scan from file" option. This file name can be a TIFF file from a previous scan, a JPEG or TIFF file from a digital camera, or a raw file from a digital camera.
Specify the name of an image file that VueScan will read when you set the "Scan from" option to "File". Usually this is a raw scan file you create with VueScan.
Disk files can be scanned just like a normal scanner. The "Input|Preview resolution" and "Input|Scan resolution" options work just as you'd expect, the preview works as you'd expect, and all the crop options work as you'd expect.
Disk files can be either TIFF files or JPEG files. While typically these files are the output of a raw can, they can be any valid JPEG or TIFF file.
Use this option to specify the type of scan you want to make. This is automatically sensed on some scanners, but you need to set this manually on other scanners.
VueScan uses this option for two things:
1) Indirectly indicates whether the scan data came from reflective media or transmissive media. "Input|Media type" will be automatically set to the most recent setting for the selected mode.
2) Indicates the color space of the scan data (i.e. the color characteristics of the CCD and light that exposed it)
When scanning from disk, you'll need to specify the original source of the scan. If you know the scanner that made the disk file, select that scanner. Otherwise select "Transparency" if the scan was from any kind of transmissive media (e.g. color slide film), or "Flatbed" if the scan was from any kind of reflective media, (e.g. photo). Make sure that "Input|Media type" is set accordingly.
When "Input|Scan resolution" is set to "Auto", this option is used to determine appropriate resolution that the scanner should use, as well as and type for the output file. Note that this does not define the resolution (dpi) of the output file, as that also depends on the "Output|Printed size" setting.
Scan quality describes the expected use for the final image, as this is typically what drives the decision of scan resolution and file format.
A scanner resolution is chosen that produces a JPEG or TIFF file with the following approximate number of pixels; higher scanner resolutions result in more pixels and larger file sizes (for a given JPEG quality or TIFF compression setting):
Option Dimensions Type Pixels ======= =========== ==== ====== Email 600 x 400 JPEG .24M Web 800 x 600 JPEG .48M Print 1600 x 1200 JPEG 1.9M Edit 2048 x 1536 TIFF 3.1M Archive 3000 x 2000 TIFF 6.0M
There are two lists of media types, depending on whether you're scanning paper (reflective media) or film (transmissive media).
Reflective media
When scanning paper, the media type is used to control whether the final image is color or black/white, and whether the image is continuous tone (photo), halftone (magazine or newspaper) or bi-level (line art or text).
When media type is set to Magazine or Newspaper, a color (magazine) or black and white (newspaper) descreen filter will be applied.
Transmissive media
When scanning film, this option indicates whether you're using positive film (i.e. slides), color negative film, or black&white negative film. This option causes the default film type to be changed, but also sets up the scanner for scanning orange-colored media (i.e. negatives) by exposing the green and blue channels more than the red channel.
If you choose "Image", no film correction is used, so the cropped file will be comparable to the image on the film. If you choose "Negative film" or "Slide film", the cropped image will comparable to the original scene that was photographed. When you use either film option, options on the Color tab lets you choose the film manufacturer, the film brand, and the film type to further refine how VueScan processes the result.
The difference between "Image" and "Slide film" is subtle. If you take a picture of the same scene with Kodachrome and Ektachrome film and scan them with the "Slide film" setting, VueScan tries to make the resulting scan look the same (i.e. to resemble the original scene). If you use the "Image" setting, the resulting scans will look different and will reflect the slightly different color characteristics of Kodachrome and Ektachrome film.
If you then took a picture of this same scene with Kodak Gold color negative film and scanned it using the "Negative film" setting, the resulting scan should look close to the scan you get from using the "Slide film" setting and scanning the Kodachrome and Ektachrome slides (i.e. all three should look like the original scene).
VueScan contains sensitometric data for 200 types of negative film and 4 types of slide film. If you're scanning other types of slide film, choose Kodachrome for K14 process slides, and Ektachrome for E6 process slides.
This option is displayed when scanning reflective media and "Input|Media type" is set to "Magazine" or "Newspaper".
Set this option to the approximate number of dots per inch of the "screen" used when printing the media you're scanning. The default value of 75 seems to work well for most media.
This option is used with flatbed scanners to specify the size of the reflective media you're scanning.
If set to "Auto", the full size of the flatbed will be previewed and the location and size of the media will be automatically determined.
If a specific size is chosen, no preview is necessary when you press the Scan button, saving a significant amount of time.
This option specifies how many bits per pixel are read from the scanner. The more bits you read from the scanner, the higher quality the image but the slower the transfer speed at full resolution. If you specify a value for bits per pixel that the scanner isn't capable of, the closest valid option is used instead.
Scanning at 24-bit resolution can add gaps to the final image histogram (compared to 48-bit resolution), but it can also speed up scanning with some scanners and often the end result is virtually indistinguishable from 48-bit scans.
If this option is set to "Auto", the "Input|Media type" option controls the number of bits per pixel and samples per pixel used in a scan.
If you set this option to "All", pressing either the Preview or Scan button will preview or scan all the frames in the scanner. If you set it to "List", you can specify a list of frames to preview or scan.
Note that you can change this to "Off" during a long-running batch scan, and this will stop scanning when the current frame is done (this is a better way to stop than pressing the Abort button, since this will leave files half-written).
Batch scanning also works when scanning from disk files. In this case, the "All" option refers to all disk files named using a series of numbers (e.g. scan0001.tif, scan0002.tif, etc.). If the "scan0001.tif" file in the series is specified as "Input|Scan from file", the, "Input|Frame number" will cause VueScan to reference the file with the same number.
You can specify multiple frames by specifying multiple frame numbers, or specifying a range of frames like "1-3", or some combination of both (i.e. "1,3,5-7" causes frames 1,3,5,6,7 to be scanned).
You can also add an additional rotation to any frame or range of frames by putting a letter along with each frame number. Use "N" for no rotation, "L" for left, "F" for flip, "R" for right, and "D" for default rotation. The letters may be in upper case or lower case.
For example, adding "3r" to the batch list means scan frame 3 and rotate it 90 degrees to the right, "2L" says to scan frame 2 and rotate it 90 degrees to the left, "1F,2L,4R" says to scan frame 1 flipped, frame 2 rotated to the left, and frame 4 rotated to the right. If no letter is specified (or if "D" is used), then the last rotation setting in the batch list will apply for all subsequent frames.
Using Batch list, you can also preview scan a group of images in one step, make adjustments on each previewed frame, and then scan to apply each adjustment for each frame in the batch. So the process is:
If you have a film scanner that can move the film holder, you can use this option to select which slide or negative frame you want to scan. This option will only be displayed if your scanner supports this.
There are several advanced uses of "Input|Frame number" to consider when setting "Input|Scan from" to "File" or using the "Crop|X/Y Images" options.
When scanning from disk files, VueScan will consider a number at the end of the "Input|Scan from file" as the starting point in a series, and "Input|Frame number" to reference a file relative to that starting point. So if you have scanned a whole roll of film and have raw files "scan0001.tif" through "scan0036.tif" you may specify "scan0001.tif" as "Input|Scan from file", and then use Frame number to work on different scanned files as though they were frames. Frame number 18 would then use the disk file "scan0018.tif" as the source when you press Preview or Scan.
Frame number may also be used if you have set up either "Crop|X images" or "Crop|Y images" to a value greater than 1. Frames are counted from left to right, top to bottom. See the topic for "Crop|X/Y Images" for further information.
This option sets an offset for the start of the each frame on a film strip on the Nikon LS-30, LS-40, LS-2000, LS-4000 and LS-8000 scanners, the Canon FS4000 when the strip film adapter is used, and the SprintScan 120 when the Medium Format adapter is used.
Use this option if there is some leader on the film strip, or if you're scanning panoramic frames and need to scan what would otherwise be the gap between 35mm frames. This option can be either a positive or negative number.
With the LS-40 and LS-4000, the starting position of a frame is affected by how the start of each frame is related to the sprocket holes. There's no automatic alignment of the start of the frame with the sprocket holes in the current version of VueScan, so it's best to iteratively set the frame offset for each film strip by doing a preview of frame 2 and estimating the number of millimeters that need to be offset.
You can get a more exact estimate of the frame offset by moving the mouse to the start of the frame and entering the Y position of the cursor into the "Crop|Frame offset" field. Press the Preview button again to confirm that the framing is set up properly.
The units for this option are normally millimeters, but this can be changed with the "Crop|Crop units" option.
This option sets the spacing between frames for some film scanners that support this in hardware. It is not available for most film scanners or flatbed scanners. This is the distance between the starting positions of two consecutive frames.
The units for this option are normally millimeters, but this can be changed with the "Crop|Crop units" option.
Use this option to specify the resolution the scanner will when performing the preview scan.
If set to "Auto", a resolution will be chosen that results in a preview with roughly one million pixels. The exact number of pixels depends on the resolutions your scanner is able to produce.
If set to "Custom", the resolution is selected by the "Input|Preview dpi" option.
You can also select a specific preview resolution from the list.
Lower resolutions may take somewhat less time to scan, and will use less memory. The preview resolution needs only to be enough for you to determine appropriate cropping, filter settings, color settings and so on; the result of the final scan is determined by Scan resolution and other settings, not Preview resolution.
If "Input|Preview resolution" is set to "Custom", the scanner will use a hardware-supported resolution that is greater than or equal to this value. VueScan will rescale the image to the requested resolution.
Use this option to specify the resolution the scanner will use when performing the final scan.
If set to "Auto", a resolution will be chosen based on the setting of "Input|Scan quality". The exact number of pixels depends on the resolutions your scanner is able to produce -- the number of pixels is displayed in the status area of the VueScan window.
If set to "Custom", the resolution is selected by the "Input|Scan dpi" option.
You can also select a specific scan resolution from the list.
If "Input|Scan from" is set to "File", the list will display fractional resolutions of the original file, i.e. 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5, 1/6, 1/7 and 1/8. Most scanners, on the other hand, are only able to scan at even halves of the full scanner resolution: 1/2, 1/4 and 1/8. The additional granularity provided with the Scan from Disk option can be obtained with the scanner by scanning at full resolution and using the "Output|TIFF/JPEG size reduction" option.
If "Input|Scan resolution" is set to "Custom", the scanner will use a hardware-supported resolution that is greater than or equal to this value. VueScan will rescale the image to the requested resolution.
This option describes the orientation of the images in the Preview and Scan tabs and in TIFF, JPEG, Index and Raw files. This is relative to the unrotated image that comes from the scanner.
If you don't have much memory on your system, set this option to "None" and rotate the image later with an image viewer - this will make the cropping go a lot faster. Using "Right" rotates 90 degrees clockwise, using "Flip" rotates 180 degrees, and using "Left" rotates 90 degrees counterclockwise.
Note that rotation happens after mirroring.
This options mirrors images left/right after rotating. This lets you insert film facing any direction you'd prefer.
Set this option to enable a focus before doing a preview or scan (or both). The scanner will focus on the point specified by "Crop|Focus X/Y Offset". This location is visually represented by an animated cross-hair in the Preview tab after a preview scan is done.
Set to "Preview" so that focus is only done one time if the scan will be done directly after the preview. Set to "Always" otherwise, or to ensure the most accurate focus, as in some cases, the heat generated by the preview can cause the media to bend.
If you have locked exposure and turned off auto-cropping (see "Advanced Workflow Suggestions") no preview will be performed. In this case, you must focus at scan time, so either "Scan" or "Both" will ensure that a focus is performed.
Set this option to a value between -1 and 1 to manually change the device focus. The nominal value for most scanners is 0.
If this option is set to "Preview" or "Scan" and if the scanner can sense when an image is inserted, VueScan will simulate pressing either the "Preview" or "Scan" buttons when an image is inserted.
This option is reset to "None" if you press the "Abort" button.
If this option is set to "Preview" or "Scan", VueScan will save files after a preview or scan completes. If set to "None" files will be saved only after pressing the "Save" button.
In most cases, this option should be set to "Scan".
If this option is set to "Preview" or "Scan", VueScan will print after a preview or scan completes. If set to "None" scans will be printed only when you choose the "File|Print image" command.
In most cases, this option should be set to "Scan".
This option controls when the lamp in the scanner is turned on and off. This option is only displayed when a scanner is selected that is capable of controlling the lamp independently from the scan.
Option Startup Exit Auto lamp off ======= ======= ==== ============= None no action no action none Always no action lamp off end of scan 5 minutes lamp on lamp off 5 minutes Exit lamp on lamp off noneWhen "None" is selected, the lamp is turned on at the start of a scan and is never turned off.
When "Always" is selected, the lamp is turned off at the end of a scan and turned off when VueScan exits.
When "5 minutes" is selected, the lamp is turned on when VueScan starts, turned off when VueScan exits, and turned off 5 minutes after the end of a scan.
When "Exit" is selected, the lamp is turned on when VueScan starts and turned off when VueScan exits.
This option controls when the media is ejected (assuming the scanner is capable of ejecting media). It can be ejected after a preview, after a scan, or when VueScan exits.
The media can be ejected manually by pressing the Eject button.
When "Input|Batch scan" is set, the ejection will occur after the batch is complete.
This option is available for scanners that support multi-sampling. As the scanner head passes over the media it makes multiple exposures for each location. The results for all samples are averaged.
This is useful because any one exposure may be inaccurate, resulting in noise in the output. Noise will appear as one pixel whose color or tone is different than surrounding pixels. By taking multiple samples and averaging the results, the effect of inaccurate exposure is reduced.
This option will slow down scanning because the scanner is doing more. You should experiment with your scanner to see which balance of speed and accuracy is appropriate.
Number of samples is similar to Number of passes. Multi-sampling is preferable as the scanner head is positioned once, which ensures that the same area will be exposed for each sample. Multi-sampling is available only on a limited number of scanners.
This option provides similar function as the Number of samples option, but does not require the scanner to provide hardware support for multi-sampling. Each pass causes a full scan. After all passes are complete, the results are averaged, and the average is saved.
This is useful because any one exposure may be inaccurate, resulting in noise in the output. Noise will appear as one pixel whose color or tone is different than surrounding pixels. By taking multiple passes and averaging the results, the effect of inaccurate exposure is reduced.
This option will slow down scanning because the scanner is doing more. You should experiment with your scanner to see which balance of speed and accuracy is appropriate.
On multiple passes the scanner head needs to be repositioned precisely at the same location as where it started on the previous pass. Some scanners do not support this operation. Others do, but reposition incorrectly, which will cause a blurred result.
Note that the PhotoSmart scanner doesn't align multiple scans very well because of the way it uses rubber rollers to move the film or slides. For this reason, this option isn't useful on the PhotoSmart.
Other scanners (such as the Polaroid SprintScan 4000) have alignment problems of a few pixels between each scan pass.
When this option is set, VueScan will do a single preview scan and then will use the preview results to crop and write the scan results.
This is most useful for scanners that are unable to re-position a frame precisely, notably the PhotoSmart because it advances film with rubber rollers. Other scanners that move the scanned media (e.g. with a film holder) may have slight alignment problems.
If the area you crop in the Preview tab is misaligned with the image that is produced in the final scan, this option may not be useful.
When scanning from preview, set "Input|Preview resolution" to the same value as "Input|Scan resolution".
This option is equivalent to pressing the "Save" button after a preview.
This option provides a way to get additional detail from the darker parts of the scanned image. It is available on scanners that are able to increase the CCD exposure time.
A first pass is done as usual using the normal RGB exposure. This will be an appropriate exposure for the image as a whole. Then a second pass is performed with a longer exposure, which can reveal additional detail in dark areas not captured in the first pass. VueScan then merges the results of the two by choosing from either the first or second (long exposure) pass.
Pixels that are near saturated pixels on the long pass aren't merged with the scan. This reduces the problems of CCD blooming - saturated pixels spilling into nearby pixels. However, some CCD's have a severe problem with charge bleeding from saturated pixels to nearby pixel, causing a problem where dark areas are adjacent to bright areas.
Note that this option sometimes produces image artifacts near sharp transitions between dark and light areas, and should be used with care. It works better on some scanners than others, and it isn't recommended as a default option.
Set this option to lock the CCD exposure values to auto-exposure values computed for the most recent preview or scan, or as adjusted manually with the "Input|RGB exposure" option.
This option can save time when scanning a batch of images with similar characteristics, e.g. a roll of film.
If you turn on this option and also clear "Crop|Auto position", then the "Scan" button won't first do a preview scan. This can save time when batch scanning.
Note that locking the CCD exposure values doesn't lock the brightness of the final images - it only locks the brightness of the raw scan files. To lock the brightness of the final images, use the "Input|Lock image color" option.
See the "Advanced workflow suggestions" section of this User's Guide for more information.
On scanners that are able to vary the CCD exposure time, this option lets you multiply the exposure time by a user-specified value. This is sometimes useful when scanning very dark slides with bright highlights when you want to get more detail from the dark parts of the slides.
There's seldom any reason to increase these values from the values computed by the auto exposure.
If the CCD is over-exposed when scanning color negative film, then the film base color gets messed up and the dark parts of the image (the bright parts of the negative) will lose detail.
Note that these exposure values don't directly control the brightness of the final image. This is controlled by options in the Color tab. These exposure values control the brightness of the raw scan file only.
Use this option to control how the CCD exposure time is computed. A nominal value of .01 works well for most images, but if you find that the CCD exposure time is too low for most images, try increasing this to 0.1 or 1.0.
This option locks the color of the film substrate to values calculated at the most recent preview or scan. These values are displayed in the "Color|Film base color" fields when this option is set.
Negative film has an orange tone that needs to be subtracted from what the scanner reads in order to produce the correct result. You can see this orange color by looking at an unexposed (clear) area of developed negative film. For a given film type and roll of film (all of which is developed under the same conditions), this correction will be the same for all frames, so needs to be set only once.
This option is only available after "Input|Lock exposure" is set, and then after a preview or scan.
This option can save time when scanning a batch of images with similar characteristics, e.g. a roll of film.
See the "Advanced workflow suggestions" section of this User's Guide for more information.
This option locks the black and white point used in the most recent preview or scan. This is useful after scanning the first image in a series of images when you want to make the lighting consistent in future scans (especially when scanning panoramas). This option is only displayed if you first set the "Input|Lock exposure" option and the "Input|Lock film base color" option.
See the "Advanced workflow suggestions" section of this User's Guide for more information.
Select this option to reveal the specialized options in this tab.
Note that some options are available only when your scanning hardware supports a specific function. Other options will display only when certain other related options are set.