VueScan Newsletter - March 2025

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Welcome!

Hello to every one of you! Whether you have been with us for years or have just discovered VueScan, we are delighted that you are with us and thank you for subscribing to this newsletter.

For those of you who are new (and we have a high number of new subscribers every month) we try to make this newsletter as useful as possible. Our long-term customers are aware that we also try to be as effective as possible – so forgive us for keeping this quite technical – and (we hope) at the same time to be as informative and as interesting as possible.

Continue to send us your customer feedback and suggestions – these are the backbone of our company and drive most of our improvements.

And again, as a small company, we do rely on personal recommendations and everyone sharing their experiences – whether it is on social media or informing the support departments in the hardware manufacturers. So, an enormous thank you to all of you who have done this – and please continue to do so.

Finally, please continue to send us details of all your projects. It makes fascinating reading as VueScan is used extensively on a global basis.

So, a last reminder - If you’ve had a positive experience with VueScan, we would be very grateful if you could take a moment to share your thoughts by leaving a review on Trustpilot, Facebook or another review site.

Your feedback not only helps others discover VueScan but also allows us to continuously improve our product. Thank you for your time in doing this – we know everyone is busy.

Remember you can contact us for technical support (we need a Problem Report) and any general enquiries, suggestions, or feedback should only be submitted here

We have many exciting improvements planned for this year and we very much look forward to sharing these with you.

Beverley.

VueScan Updates

Since the last newsletter, we’ve released VueScan 9.8.45, 9.8.44, 9.8.43 and 9.8.42.

What’s new in version 9.8.45

What’s new in version 9.8.44

  • Improved support for scanning from video devices
    • Works with many inexpensive slide/document scanners costing less than $100 (i.e. VIISAN P4U)
    • Supports scanning using iPhone/iPad as a “Continuity Camera” from a Mac
    • Continuity Camera on Mac works with inexpensive iPhone copy stands available on amazon.com
    • Supports scanning using an USB video camera
    • Can disable in VueScan by setting Prefs | Disable scanners to “Webcams”
    • Can disable using “System Settings : Privacy & Security : Camera” on Mac
    • Can disable using “Settings : General : AirPlay & Continuity : Continuity Camera” control panel on iPhone/iPad
  • Restored Filter | Restore colors option
  • Increased scan speed of Epson Expression 13000XL
  • Fixed problem with some kinds of Canon MFPs not working
  • Fixed problem scanning from some TIFF files
  • Fixed problem with hangs with Huion Tablet_GT2401
  • Fixed problem with some kinds of WIA scanner drivers
  • Fixed problem with some kinds of PIE and Reflecta scanners hanging
  • Fixed problem with some newer Fujitsu scanners not working with Duplex Feeder

What’s new in version 9.8.43

  • New Year’s Eve present: Added support for most digital camera raw file formats
  • Fixed problem with Fujitsu fi-4010CU
  • Exits cleanly on Windows when using End Task in Task Manager (Ctrl-Alt-Del)
  • Exits cleanly on macOS when using Force Quit
  • Exits cleanly on Linux when receiving SIGINT and SIGTERM signals

VueScan in the Press

It was a pleasure for Ed to be interviewed by the editor of Silvergrain Classics.

For your information, SilvergrainClassics is the leading international publication in the field of analog photography and cinematography. The high-quality print magazine reaches readers in over 70 countries worldwide.

Below is the interview with Ed from the magazine’s online offering:

An Interview with Edward Hamrick.

Q & A

Ed Hamrick and David Hamrick (VueScan developers) receive all technical enquiries and answer your questions directly.

Q) Sometimes when I start VueScan, my webcam is shown in Input | Source? What’s up with this?

A) Yes, we need to improve this. Many low-cost scanners (or even expensive ones from CZUR) internally are video cameras. This lets vendors sell these scanners without needing to provide a driver. When VueScan starts without a scanner connected, the first video camera that’s connected is selected in Input | Source. Then when you exit, connect the scanner and run VueScan again, it remembers the video camera and selects it in Input | Source. We’re thinking of ways to make this less confusing.

Q) I have a high-end digital camera that I could use to take pictures of slides. How can I best connect it to VueScan

A) This is called “tethered camera” support. There’s a library we could use called libgphoto2, but it hasn’t been ported to Windows. It’s also just simpler to store the photos of slides in raw format on a memory card and load them onto your computer to process them in VueScan. We recently integrated the latest raw file loading code (libraw) and this should work well with setting Input | Source to File.

Q) My scanner sometimes fails in the middle of a scan. How can I fix this?

A) This is almost 50% of the emails we get. It’s surprisingly common for a USB cable to be damaged or crimped. It’s sometimes convenient to use a long USB cable, but large, high-speed transfers from a scanner can cause data errors on the USB cable. If you have this problem, try a different USB cable and/or a different USB port. If the cable is longer than about 3 ft (1 m), try a shorter cable.

Q) VueScan crashed – how can I resolve this?

A) Send enough information so we can duplicate the problem, along with a vuescan.log file after you duplicate the problem. Try to make it as simple as possible to duplicate the problem, including using File | Default options. If we can’t duplicate a problem, it’s almost impossible to solve it, but if it’s easily duplicated, it’s almost always solvable in a day or two.

Q) VueScan is putting a watermark on my scans. How can I fix this?

A) This is also almost 50% of the emails we get. If you bought the Basic Edition and are using a document feeder, you need the Standard Edition. If you didn’t buy the Professional Edition and want to scan film, you need to upgrade to the Professional Edition. If you set Input | Options to an Edition you didn’t buy (to test out more advanced options), set it back to the Edition you purchased.

Problem Reports

As many of you are aware, if you experience a problem in VueScan we request a Problem Report (the link is on our Support page) as this provides us with detailed information (a log report) and if we can duplicate the problem we can resolve it.

Ed and Dave answer all technical enquiries, and as we are often asked about our responses we thought you may want to see a typical email exchange between Ed and a customer – and the resolution to the issue.

Example of a typical Problem Report submitted to Ed and Dave

Vuescan keeps locking up when previewing or scan-to-save Colour negatives on strips. Sometimes it times-out and recovers, other times I’ve waited for maybe 30 minutes then force quit.
I have tried restarting, power cycling scanner, different USB cable etc.
Worked very well indeed a few versions ago, but something seems to be causing a problem now.

Many thanks in advance.
Andrew.

Try a different (and possibly shorter) USB cable and/or a different USB port. This is the most common solution to this problem.

Regards,
Ed Hamrick

Thanks Ed - I did try a different (shorter) USB lead before I emailed, but no difference. I’ll try a different port when I do the next batch and report back.

Cheers
Andrew

Just as an update, tried a second port and no difference. Latest log file attached.

Cheers
Andrew

And as a further update, after doing a single preview scan, it sat for 5-10 minutes doing nothing and, I think, showing “busy”. It then jumped into life and finished the preview, and then let me do a proper scan of the strip of negs. Log file attached.

I’ll see if I can find another USB cable - must have some more somewhere…
Thanks again for your help.

Cheers
Andrew

The Auto focus might be broken. Try setting Input | Auto focus to “Manual” to diagnose this.

Regards,
Ed Hamrick

Hi Ed,

Actually, that could be a good shout. These were very old negatives, at least 23 years old, and I have just had them processed - they have been sitting in their cans for that period. They have significant curvature, so the Nikon may be struggling to auto-focus on the surface.

Amazingly, most of them have survived, albeit showing quite underexposed, but I expect that is due to chemical deterioration. My daughters are now nearly 30 years old, so its incredible that these latent images have survived so long, as you can see from the attached scan.

I’ve just run a badly curved negative strip through under manual focus and it’s gone through with no problem, so I think you have identified the issue. Many thanks again for such a great product and support!

Cheers
Andrew

You might also try the Filter | Restore fading option - this might improve the colors a bit.

Regards,
Ed Hamrick

Customer Comments

We read and receive many complementary – and useful - comments from our customers, and we appreciate it very much. We reply to all your emails so please continue to send them in.

Not really “PR,” but I thought it would be nice to send a little fan note to go with my supporter contribution. It’s a great program that has saved my bacon with a bunch of different scanners since I first purchased it in 2014 and has become both more usable and more powerful in that time. I don’t think I’m a VueScan power user, but I’m a grateful one.

And the following from Peter – thank you!

Dear Ed,

I just wanted to let you know how much I like one of the new features in VueScan 9.8.44. It is wonderful and makes what I am doing go much faster.

I refer to the ability to automatically crop several photos in a single preview and then save them (if I like your cropping which I normally do) without having to rescan each individual photo. This is a great feature and I really like it.

Thank you and your brother for this,
Peter.

And from Didier in France:

Hi guys,

I’ve been using your software for years, and not only it’s a very fine piece of software (with much better results than most manufacturer’s app) but it also allows to use « old » scanners on up-to-date computers, thus saving money and preventing waste. So I didn’t hesitate and paid immediately for the VueScan Supporter Program.

BTW, if you want to publish this testimonial, feel free to do it after translating it from pidgin English to English!

And Eberhard in Germany:

Hello Ed and David Hamrick,

I would like to use the new year 2025 and the publication of “colorize” to finally thank you for your wonderful VueScan. I am a 75 year old mechanical engineer, amateur photographer and painter. I’ve been using VueScan since 2013. Back then, my Nikon Coolscan LS 40 ED didn’t work at all with the original software and I was looking for a solution. Since then, I have digitized my archive as much as it makes sense. For 6x6 negatives and other tasks I use a Cano Scan 9000F Mark II. Since I come from analog black and white photography, I always dreamed of coloring the old photos. I’ve also done this with a brush and paint. Thanks to your work, this now works very easily. For many simple motifs the result is quite good, for some motifs it doesn’t work that well. Perfecting this is still work for you.**

(Noted! We’re improving the feature all the time!)

And – last but not least – back to the USA!

Dear Ed, I used VueScan more than 20 years ago to digitize some color negative film and 4x5 monochrome film. I found it in some ways tedious and frustrating, and in any case I did the job and didn’t return. Now, some family interest in scanning old photos has returned me to VueScan, and frankly, it is a joy to use. Specifically, things that were once tedious have become straightforward. And… the automatic cropping/framing of multiple small photos is a gift.

Thank you to everyone!

Please Help!

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VueScan Newsletter - December 2024
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