vuesc40.htmTEXTMSIE9πN¢^πN¢^ÅÅaΩ Device tab
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Device tab

This tab contains the options that control the raw data coming from the scanner.

Option types
Use this option to select how many VueScan options to display. You can choose Basic, Intermediate or Advanced options.

Scan from
You can have more than one scanner on your system, and this lets you specify which scanner you want to use.

If you set this option to "Disk", then you'll be able to enter a file name in the "Disk file name" option.

Disk file name
This file is read when you set the "Scan from" option to "Disk". The current frame number sets the file name in a series that is used. For instance, if this option is set to "xyz0005.tif", then frame number 7 will access "xyz0012.tif" (0005 + 7 - 1).

Disk files can be scanned just like a normal scanner. The "Device|Preview resolution" and "Device|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.

Mode
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.

Image type
When "Device|Scan resolution" is set to "Auto", this option is used to determine the scan resolution. A resolution is chosen that produces a JPEG or TIFF file with the following approximate number of pixels:

   E-mail    600 x  400  JPEG
   Web page  800 x  600  JPEG
   Printer  1600 x 1200  JPEG
   Editor   2048 x 1536  TIFF
   Archive  3000 x 2000  TIFF
Media type
There are two lists of media types, depending on whether you're scanning paper (reflective media) or film (transmissive 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 and scan output resolution will be limited to 75dpi. With Newspaper, output images will be black and white (no color).

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, and the cropped file will look as much like the original image as possible. If you choose "Negative film" or "Slide film", the cropped image will look as much like the original scene as possible and the Color tab lets you choose the film manufacturer, the film brand, and the film type.

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.

Bits per pixel
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.

Batch 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 list
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 (i.e. "3r" says to 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" or "D" is used), then the default setting of "Device|Rotation" is used for all subsequent frames. This lets you set "Device|Rotation", set "Device|Batch list" to "1-99", press the Preview button, individually adjust the rotation and cropping of each frame and then press the Scan button to scan each frame in a batch.

You can use "N" for no rotation, "L" for left, "F" for flip, "R" for right, and "D" for default rotation.

Frame number
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.

In addition, if you've set up either "Crop|X images" or "Crop|Y images" to a value greater than 1, this option can be use to select a frame within an N x M array of frames.

For instance, when scanning a 4-frame negative strip on the PhotoSmart or on a flatbed, you can set "Crop|Y images" to 4. When you do this, the "Device|Frame number" option can be set to any value from 1 to 4. Note that you have to set "Crop|Y spacing" to the spacing between the starting position of each frame (usually 38 mm for strip film and 50 mm for an array of slides on a flatbed).

When you preview any one of these 4 frames, the entire strip will be scanned once.

Frame offset
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 and LS-4000 scanners.

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 over the preview while holding down the control key.

The units for this option are normally millimeters, but this can be changed with the "Crop|Crop units" option.

Frame spacing
This option sets the spacing between frames for some Medium Format scanners that support this in hardware.

The units for this option are normally millimeters, but this can be changed with the "Crop|Crop units" option.

Preview resolution
Use this option to select the preview resolution.

If set to "Auto", a resolution will be chosen that results in a preview with roughly one million pixels.

Scan resolution
Use this option to select the scan resolution.

If set to "Auto", a resolution will be chosen that results in a scan with roughly four million pixels.

Rotation
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.

Mirror
This options mirrors images left/right after rotating. This lets you insert film facing any direction you'd prefer.

Auto focus
Set this option to enable a focus before doing a preview or scan (or both).

Focus
Set this option to a value between -1 and 1 to manually change the device focus. The nominal value for most scanners is 0.

Auto scan
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.

Auto save
If this option is set to "Preview" or "Scan", VueScan will save files after a preview or scan completes.

Auto eject
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.

Number of samples
On some types of scanners, this option causes the film to be sampled multiple times at each scan position, and the average of these samples to be stored. This can significantly reduce the noise in scans.

Number of passes
On some types of scanners, this option causes the film to be scanned multiple times, and the average of these scans to be stored. This can significantly reduce the noise in scans.

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 registration problems of a few pixels between each scan pass.

Scan from preview
When this option is set, VueScan will do a single preview scan and then will use the preview to crop and write the scan data. This can be useful on some types of scanners, especially the PhotoSmart.

Long exposure pass
On scanners that are able to increase the CCD exposure time, this option lets you do an extra scan pass that's longer than the normal RGB exposure. VueScan then merges the data from these two passes to get additional detail from the dark parts of the longer 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.

Lock exposure
Set this option to lock the CCD exposure values to those computed from the most recent preview or scan.

If you turn on this option and clear "Crop|Crop auto position", then the "Scan" button won't first do a preview scan. This can save time when batch scanning.

See the "Advanced workflow suggestions" section of this User's Guide for more information.

RGB/Infrared exposure
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.

Lock film base color
This option locks the color of the film substrate.

See the "Advanced workflow suggestions" section of this User's Guide for more information.

Lock image color
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 "Device|Lock exposure" option and the "Device|Lock film base color" option.

See the "Advanced workflow suggestions" section of this User's Guide for more information.

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