"VueScan saves the day for 10,000 images"

Scanning thousands of negatives, Thomas N. Wheeler has found that VueScan has made his life so much easier!

Dr. Thomas N Wheeler retired as Vice President and Head of U.S. Research Chemistry for Glaxo SmithKline in March 2001, and now consults for several chemical companies. He is using Vuescan on a personal project designed to scan in both 35 mm and 2 ¼ inch (made with a Hasselblad) slides taken over a lifetime of avid interest in photography. The slides are being scanned and archived into the Aperture image database program (Apple). These scans are then printed up to 17 X 22 inches using an Epson 3800 Pro printer as well as sent off for binding and display in photo books.

Dr. Wheeler uses an 8-core Mac Pro (2.8 GHz, 12 Gb RAM, early 2008 model) running Leopard 10.5.8. His principle scanner for this project is a Nikon ED9000 multi-format film scanner, and he also uses a Canon 8800F flatbed scanner for scanning documents.

Challenges of scanning

"When I initially purchased the Nikon multi-format film scanner, I used it on Windows machines with Nikon’s NikonScan software. Once I moved to the Mac, I found that Nikon had never updated NikonScan to support Leopard – even for this scanner which is their current top of the line film scanner. Initially with earlier versions of Leopard than 10.5.8, I was able to get NikonScan to work slowly, but nevertheless work. When Apple updated Leopard to 10.5.8, I found that NikonScan crashed every single time I tried to open it. With NikonScan no longer available to me, I turned to VueScan." says Dr. Wheeler.

Dr. Wheeler purchased and started using VueScan in 2009. He looked at other scanning products but chose VueScan immediately, and has no regrets.

"I love VueScan because it allows me to use the many features (infrared dust detection, multiple exposures, etc.) that my Nikon ED9000 film scanner has. I bought it for those features and yet some very expensive scanner software, e.g. the Silverfast Ai scanner software, for this Nikon ED9000 film scanner, does NOT allow me to use the Digital Ice (infrared dust detection) feature of my scanner. Needless to say, I very much wanted to use all of the scanner features and needed the software that would enable me to do so."

Dr. Wheeler says that the principle benefit to him in using VueScan is that it is fast, and it enables him to access and use all the features of his film scanner. This translates to higher productivity and speed in getting projects finished in a timely manner and with the highest quality.

"Put quite simply, without VueScan I would not have been able to complete this project of scanning a lifetime of images (over 10,000 images!). I was so impressed that I wrote in and thanked Ed Hamrick for such a fine piece of software!"