Camera
Comparison Review: Can VueScan or SilverFast archive your film better?
Introduction
A difficult 2020 that has blended into a difficult 2021 has made it harder for many of us to get outside and shoot, but that doesn’t mean you have to neglect your photography. If you’re like me, you probably still have years’ worth of unscanned slides and negatives waiting to be tended to some rainy day, and a COVID lockdown gives you a golden opportunity.
But are you better off using the software that came with your scanner, or should you shell out for a third-party alternative to get the best results? Before I rolled up my sleeves and started scanning, I wanted to answer this question for myself.
To do so, I compared Epson Scan 3.9.3.4 – which comes bundled with the company’s Perfection-series photo scanners and seems nicely representative of manufacturer-supplied software – with two of the most popular third-party alternatives, LaserSoft Imaging’s SilverFast SE Plus 8.8.0r22 and Hamrick Software’s VueScan Professional Edition 9.7.35.
All three applications were tested with Windows 10 version 1909 on a 2018 Dell XPS 15 9570 alongside an Epson Perfection V850 Pro scanner.
Since I’m looking at this from the perspective of film scanning, I’m limiting my comparisons solely to scanning of positive and negative strip film and slides, and won’t be considering features like document or photo print scanning, copying, OCR, and the like.
Let’s start off by looking at interfaces.
Epson Scan feels a bit dated and lacks some features
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| Epson Scan shown in Professional mode with all windows open except the configuration dialog. As you can see, there’s not much space for your photos. |
As is often the case with software from hardware manufacturers, Epson Scan’s Professional Mode user interface feels quite dated and somewhat unintuitive. It’s split across five floating control panels that, together, don’t leave much room to preview your slides, yet still offers fewer controls than its third-party rivals.
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| No matter how I set Windows 10’s resolution and scaling, I couldn’t access the reset button on this non-resizable configuration dialog. |
Optional Full Auto and Home modes simplify things, but also hide many features altogether. And it’s also sometimes a little buggy. For example, no matter how I configured Windows’ resolution and scaling, its un-resizable configuration dialog overflowed its borders, preventing me from being able to do things like reset app defaults.
Overall, it’s reasonably usable but not great.
SilverFast is powerful, but overly dense and confusing
SilverFast has only two operating modes: WorkflowPilot or Manual. WorkFlowPilot only allows single-photo scanning, and takes you through the process step by step. Some choices feel odd, though: For example it won’t allow you to simply scan a standard JPEG.
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| SilverFast’s user interface is packed with buttons and controls, not all of them intuitively named or labeled. (And quite a few are duplicates, increasing the clutter.) |
Manual mode gives access to everything at once, but is very busy and unnecessarily confusing. Button colors vary for no logical reason, and active functions are indicated only with a tiny red dot. Help is provided throughout, but the many (and often redundant) buttons linking to abbreviated PDF manuals and numerous lengthy tutorial videos make its interface even more cluttered.
I also found it prone to making me wait for preview scans more than its rivals, and cancelling a batch scan can be extremely tedious as it makes you separately cancel every remaining frame, one by one. This was my least-favorite interface of the bunch.
VueScan’s interface is faster and cleaner
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| VueScan’s user interface largely revolves around intuitively named and well-categorized dropdown menus. It’s the cleanest and most responsive of the bunch. |
VueScan’s UI has Basic, Standard or Professional modes, all three mostly using drop-down lists very logically arranged in two to five tabs. It’s cleaner, faster and more modern than its rivals, and leaves more room to preview your images. Its single PDF user manual is also unusually detailed and helpful.
This is hands-down my favorite of the trio.
Epson is fastest, but there’s a catch
Performance will, obviously, vary depending both on the speed of your scanner, and what hardware features it offers. With that proviso, I found Epson Scan had a slight edge in scanning speed, but with a significant catch.
Epson Scan took just under 59 minutes to scan 18 negatives at 6400 dpi with dust reduction and sharpening active, while VueScan took 67 minutes, and SilverFast trailed the pack at 84 minutes. But Epson Scan’s fixed crop for batch scanning threw away a significant amount of image data.
Epson Scan is just fractionally ahead of VueScan performance-wise. SilverFast trails both its rivals by some distance.
Calculating backwards from the image dimensions as scanned, Epson Scan managed around 14.8 Megapixels/minute, just fractionally faster than VueScan’s 14.5 Megapixels/minute. SilverFast managed only 11.5 Megapixels/minute, making it by far the slowest.
All three apps could use more accurate cropping
While Epson Scan’s auto-cropping was by far the least accurate of the bunch, routinely discarding 10-15% of the frame height, I was surprised to find both SilverFast and VueScan also struggled to accurately detect frame sizes, as well.
Both apps mostly got the frame height in the ballpark, but had some issues detecting the gaps between frames. SilverFast sometimes incorrectly rotated frames, too. Significant manual tweaking is needed for all three programs if you want accurate cropping.
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| Although I found its cropping setup the best overall, I still thought VueScan could use improvement both in its frame detection and its somewhat confusing default UI. |
VueScan’s much more responsive interface made those adjustments easier than its rivals, though. And Epson Scan was the least flexible, preventing you from batch-scanning unless you’re willing to live with its automatically-selected cropping.
I did find VueScan’s enabled-by-default “multi outline” option a bit confusing, though. To look at the wildly flickering borders below you’d think the cropping was wildly off, but the actual framing is indicated for only one frame at a time by the smaller border seen on the top-rightmost thumbnail in the picture above.
But enough of the user interface. How did they perform in terms of image quality? We’ll start out with detail levels.
Similar levels of detail, but SilverFast has higher default sharpening
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| One of my first attempts at a still life as a teenager now makes for a rather nice gauge of detail. In the 100% crops below, note the pale horizontal lines are fine water droplets misted from a garden hose just out of frame right. |
Perhaps not surprisingly, given they’re all constrained by the same scanner hardware, all three programs turn in a very similar result in terms of their rendering of fine detail. In all three cases, sharpening and IR dust reduction were enabled.
SilverFast definitely defaults to significantly higher levels of sharpening than its rivals, though, giving the impression of more detail. But VueScan and Epson Scan’s images can easily be unsharp-masked post capture or the default sharpening levels tweaked similarly.
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| Epson Scan | SilverFast | VueScan |
Epson and VueScan give the best color
All three programs can give good color with some work, but I found SilverFast needed tweaking more often than its rivals, tending to yield results that were too warm and with purplish casts, even with its color-cast reduction and orange mask expansion enabled. Unlike Epson Scan, it allows the film type to be selected for better results, but has a shorter list of film types than does VueScan.
Epson Scan’s automatic tools tended to yield the best color, but were perhaps a bit overly-saturated and warm for my liking, especially in skin tones, and manual adjustments were significantly trickier.
VueScan’s defaults were a bit cool and less saturated, although switching to auto levels or white balance modes gave better results. Like SilverFast, it can correct for the film’s orange mask, but the multi-step process is a little confusing, and it frequently lost the correction values, which then had to be reset.
Find out more on how image quality compares, and my final verdict on which program is best, on the next page.
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While visiting Dry Tortugas National Park, located 109km west of Key West, Florida, I looked down from the top of Fort Jefferson and saw this group of snorkelers just off Garden Key. Moments after this photo was taken, one of the snorkelers had the bad luck of being stung by a Portuguese man o’ war.
Photo: Dale Baskin |
The theme for our March Editors’ challenge is ‘Water’.
Show us the essence of water in its many forms, from the roaring power of the ocean to a gentle rain, reflections on a lake, smooth waterfalls, frozen ice, or even fine art. The possibilities are endless, so let your creativity flow and show us your best photos that revolve around water. Our favorites will be featured on the DPReview homepage later this month.
This challenge is open to photos taken at any time.
Photos can be submitted between Sunday, March 16, and Saturday, March 22 (GMT).
Important: Images MUST include a title and a caption of at least 25 words to be eligible. Viewers want to know the story behind your photo. We will consider both photos and captions when selecting our winners, so make sure to tell us that story!
Visit the challenge page to read the full rules and to submit your photos for consideration as soon as the challenge opens.
Visit the challenge page to see all the rules
| Images: Vanguard, Apple, Elinchrom |
CP+ may have ended last week, but that apparently hasn’t stopped the flood of accessory news. Today, we’ll look at a few lights, bags, computers and more, but first, let’s see what’s on sale.
Second-gen Goodness
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| Photo: Richard Butler |
Canon’s Stacked sensor flagship, the EOS R5 II, is currently on sale for $300 off MSRP. We reviewed it late last year, and came away very impressed – it’s a camera that excels at nearly everything.
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| Photo: Richard Butler |
Panasonic’s S5II isn’t quite as performant, but it’s still quite a good camera. It’s also substantially cheaper than the EOS R5 II, especially given the current sale that gets you $500 off.
Let there be lights
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| Image: Godox |
Godox’s latest light for videographers and photographers is the Litemons C30. It’s a tiny LED panel weighing 248g that packs an internal battery capable of putting out 30W of light for up to 45 minutes. A USB-C port lets you recharge the battery or run the light for an extended period of time.
There are two versions of the light – a bicolor model, which costs $59, and an RGB model that will run you $89.
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| Image: Elinchrom |
If you need something a little more powerful, there’s the recently released Elinchrom LED 100 C, a continuous RGB light with an integrated 72Wh battery that provides up to 40 minutes of power in the field. It comes with a diffusion dome and an adapter for Profoto light modifiers and can be charged via USB-C.
On the level
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| Image: Vanguard |
Ball-head tripods are great if you want to easily level your tripod without messing around with leg length, but what if you already have a tripod that you like? Vanguard’s LVL accessory might be for you. It’s designed to sit between your sticks and your tripod’s head, adding a bit of height and letting you level your tripod head in a matter of seconds.
Vanguard makes several sizes, so it should be compatible with a wide range of tripods. The smallest, the LVL 42, has a 42mm base and can support up to 20kg (44lb), while the LVL 75 can support up to 40kg (88lb) – just make sure the rest of your tripod can handle that much weight too.
In the bag
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| Image: Wandrd |
If you want to carry around some camera gear without using a massive backpack, Wandrd’s Stratus Photo 18L may be the bag for you. It’s relatively small and has built-in organization for your camera gear, as well as access hatches on both the right and left-hand side. It’s made of weather-resistant materials and has load-adjustment straps and a chest strap, which should let you carry it comfortably even if you’ve got it filled with gear.
New affordable iPads
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| Image: Apple |
People don’t always think of the iPad as a photographic tool, but nowadays Apple’s tablets have a lot of processing power and can run many of the apps photographers use on their desktops. The company’s entry-level models – the iPad Air and the plainly-named iPad – have just gotten updates that make them better than ever. The Air gets the laptop-class M3 chip, as well as a new, optional keyboard with a bigger trackpad, function row and aluminum design. The M3 iPad Air starts at $599, and the new keyboard costs $269.
The cheaper iPad, meanwhile, gets the A16 chip from the iPhone 14 and 14 Pro. While it’s not as powerful as the M-class chips and doesn’t support Apple’s suite of AI features, it should still be plenty for light photo editing and organization. Its base storage has also been doubled from 64GB to 128GB. It starts at $349, which is what its predecessor sold for ever since Apple cut the price by $100 in 2024.
That wasn’t all Apple announced this week, though…
Get caught up
Some accessory news is so big that it gets its own article during the week, but we’d feel remiss not also mentioning those products here.
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| Image: Apple |
As an example, Apple’s new computers. The company announced updates to its entry-level MacBook Air and top-of-the-line Mac Studio this week, adding its latest processors. The MacBook Air has enough processing power to handle the typical Photoshop and Lightroom tasks that most photographers need, all while being hyper-portable, while the Mac Studio can handle the highest-end photo and video editing tasks.
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| Image: Peak Design |
Also announced this week: Peak Design’s Roller Pro, the company’s first piece of roller luggage. It’s a bit of a hybrid between a hardshell case and a softshell one, with plenty of padding and a front sleeve that can hold a laptop and other everyday carry items. You can read our full coverage of it here.
It’s currently being sold via Kickstarter for a discount over its $599 MSRP, but the usual disclaimer applies: Remember to do your research with any crowdfunding project. DPReview does its best to share only the projects that look legitimate and come from reliable creators, but as with any crowdfunded campaign, there’s always the risk of the product or service never coming to fruition.
| Photo: Richard Butler |
Sony has released a firmware update that brings its Content Authenticity Solution to the a7 IV. The company announced a similar update for the a1 II, a1 and a9 III in January. However, this is the first time the tool to authenticate images will be available on something other than high-end, professional-grade cameras.
Software Ver. 5.00 for the Sony a7 IV adds support for the “Write Digital Signature” function for still images. This function allows photographers to add an electronic signature to their images to prove that they were taken with that camera. Authenticity tools such as this are becoming increasingly important with the growing prevalence of generative AI-created imagery and, as a result, the spread of fake images.
Of course, as with the update for the three pro-grade cameras in January, there are some caveats involved. The Digital Signature function requires a paid license and is only available for certain media outlets, not the general public. Unfortunately, Sony still hasn’t provided any additional information on if or when it will be available for general consumers. On the firmware update page, Sony simply says that the “timing for the provision of paid licenses to customers other than certain media outlets is yet to be determined.”
Even though the current usability is limited, Sony rolling this out to consumer models is a step in the right direction. The Content Authenticity information page also says that “more camera models will be supported in due course,” so it sounds like we should see additional cameras with the tool at some point. If Sony makes the feature more widely available beyond media outlets, the Digital Signature feature will already be on cameras and ready for use.
If you want to be prepared, or happen to work for one of the select media outlets, the Sony a7 IV firmware update Ver. 5.00 is now available for download.
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