VueScan Newsletter - May 2021

Hello and Welcome!

I have no idea if everyone else feels the same – but time does seem to speed up these days and before I know it another newsletter is due again! So, hello again to all our ‘old’ customers and a warm welcome to our new customers. We keep this newsletter short and factual, mainly due to the fact that we seem to be in a world of ‘Information Overload’ and we all have time pressure – and sometimes it’s difficult to keep up with everything. (This could just be me of course!) but that is why this is the only part where I chat with you as we don’t want to use up your valuable time with unnecessary information. Saying that, please continue to email us with your comments, product suggestions and user stories.

As said many times, we’re a small team and most of our product development is customer driven. Your feedback is vital to us keeping VueScan up to date and meeting your needs. Plus, we really want to hear about your amazing scanning projects. Please remember you can contact us for technical support (we need a Problem Report) and any general enquiries, suggestions or feedback here

I am writing this from England, where Spring is (very slowly) trying to make headway. But wherever you are in the world, please continue to take care and be safe in these difficult times.

VueScan Updates

Since the last newsletter, we’ve released VueScan 9.7.55, 9.7.54, 9.7.53 and 9.7.52.

You can access all version changes here

What’s new in VueScan 9.7.55

Improved scan quality with 5 Canon LiDE scanners
- Canon LiDE 35
- Canon LiDE 40
- Canon LiDE 50
- Canon LiDE 60
- Canon LiDE 80
Improved scan speed with Canon LiDE 80
If cropping changed after a scan, ‘Cropped area’ tab is updated
Updated Polish translation
Updated Turkish translation

What’s new in VueScan 9.7.54

Only shows ‘Save’ button if cropped area hasn’t been saved or if it’s been rotated or mirrored (‘FileSave image’ and ‘FileSave image+’ are always available)
When file name entered with ‘@’ button, doesn’t add path if same as default folder
Changed ‘PrefsExternal viewer’ to a checkbox
Changed ‘PrefsViewer” to allow ‘folder’ as an option
Always show tips the first time after installation
Updated Polish translation
Fixed problem with some AirPrint scanners
Fixed problem with Epson WF-3720
Fixed problem with Canon MX450 at 1200 dpi
Fixed problem with viewer sometimes being started after a preview

What’s new in VueScan 9.7.53

Added support for Plustek A320E
Fixed problem with some Genesys Logic scanners
- Canon 5600F
- Canon LiDE 100
- Canon LiDE 200
- Canon LiDE 700F
- Plustek OpticFilm 7400
- Plustek OpticFilm 7600i
- Plustek OpticFilm 8100
- Plustek OpticFilm 8200i
Fixed problem with some WIA scanners
Fixed problem with Epson XP-6100
Fixed problem with Canon DR-C230
Fixed problem with Brother MFC-J5625DW
Improved recognition of ScanJet 4850 vs. ScanJet 4890 (same USB Product ID)

What’s new in VueScan 9.7.52

Added support for 2 new Brother MFPs
- Brother DCP-J587N
- Brother DCP-J987N
Added support for ‘InputLamp’ on Epson Perfection V600
Fixed problem with Minolta Scan Multi and Scan Multi Pro
Improved recognition of ScanJet 4850 vs. ScanJet 4890 (same USB Product ID)

Using a VPN to scan from a remote location

We have heard from many of you how you have spent a lot of the Covid time scanning old photos and documents. When we received this enquiry from a customer in Germany about using a scanner in a remote location, we thought it might be useful to share: “The scanner I want to use is in another collision domain and I want to use it via network and VPN. That worked with Linux and Windows already but not on VueScan for Mac since the scanner is not discovered via Bonjour. Please add a possibility to manually enter the IP-Address of the Scanner.“

This was our reply: *

Look up the USB Vendor ID and USB Product ID in the supported scanners list, then set “Prefs | Network scanners” to “Manual” and put this info and the IP address into the fields below this. Our customer, Knut, was kind enough to allow us to use this as a reference for everyone else. “I placed my old Samsung C480FW at my mothers and had her Fritz!Box router connected with mine via VPN. I need to take care about a lot of her legal things and can now ask her to place any letters in the feeder and scan it remotely. In times of Covid this is super. She lives 350 km away from me and so I save a lot of time. The Postal Service in Germany works super unreliable since the privatization and this gives me an opportunity to remotely access her documents. Thank you so much for your product.”

Frequently Asked Questions

Q) I’m scanning the front and back of photos with a document feeder and I’d like to save both in a single JPEG file. How can I do this?

A) Set “Output | JPEG multi page” to “Front/Back” If you’re scanning documents and you want to save the front and back of each page to a separate PDF file, set “Output | PDF multi page” to “Front/Back”.

Q) I have a Mac with macOS Big Sur, and it isn’t working with my Epson scanner. How can I solve this?

A) Install the “ICA Scanner” driver for your scanner from www.epson.com. If you’re using a Mac with the M1 chip, use the x64 version of VueScan instead of the a64 version, since the Epson plugin library is an Intel binary.

Q) I’m using VueScan with an Epson V600. My question is about File Savings. When I scan four slides it asks me name each one separately. How do I get it to save them automatically and name each one with the next number that follows on from the previous one?

A) Use a file name like: long_file_name_0001+.tif

Q) Colour Filtering. How do I get the colours a bit more vibrant? i.e. the blue skies a bit bluer, as they look a bit washed out and pale. I tried all of the presets. I just want a quick and easy method, not to edit on a separate software.

A) Experiment with “Color | Brightness” and “Filter | Restore colors”

Customer Corner

A request from Doug Bowker in Massachusetts

Just a quick suggestion that I don’t think should be hard to implement. I almost always save any downloaded software updates in their own folder, and generally keep them until I’m a few revisions past the current. This is just in case a new version works incorrectly or there’s some other issue, and for VueScan it’s no different. From what I’ve observed most developers release their updates with the numbered (or point) version built into the download itself. However, your downloads only show the broad revision number, which in the case of the 6497 series has been running since at least last June. I usually end up just appending the month and year to the download for my own sake, but it’d be much more helpful to have the actual point release number built in, something like “vuex64_9.7.52.exe” or whichever it was at the time.

Thanks, Doug.

Update:

We have added this and the download (when you click the red button on www.hamrick.com) now contains the full version number. The version number is baked into the filename that gets downloaded. So, if you download it now the file will be something like:

vuea64-9.7.54.dmg

The first part is always ‘vue’, the next part says if it’s x32/x64 (Intel) or a32/a64 (ARM or Universal - both Intel and ARM), the next part is the version number, and the file extension (dmg, exe, tgz, deb) is different on each operating system.

Emails from our customers

We recognise how important scanning has been to many people over the past year, and we are very thankful if we have managed to help anyone in some small way. We have had many emails similar to this one, so thank you to everyone who lets us know about their projects. It means a lot to us to hear from you.

We really appreciated receiving this from Philippa.

I really appreciate your help today as I was trying to get an older scanner to work with a new computer. I recognize that you created the VueScan software to deal with such issues and allow people to use the equipment that they already have to continue to do things they have done before. I think that is wonderful.

In my case, I was trying to scan some old 35mm slides taken in the 1970s by my Dad. My Mum died last month, and because our family cannot gather to commemorate her life as we would normally have done, we are creating an online book about her. The slides I was trying to scan included photos of her with family members that we wanted to include in the book. It was important to us to have everyone represented.

I am so grateful to you for creating software that allowed me to scan the images and that will allow me to continue using a perfectly functional piece of equipment instead of replacing it. I admit that there was a learning curve that frustrated me for some time until I got your helpful instructions, but with those instructions, I was able to make things work.

I just wanted to say thank you because retrieving those images means a great deal to me and my family.

I hope that wherever you are, you and your families are safe and well.

Philippa, Toronto, Canada.

If it was not for the VueScan software I would have had to junk my Nikon Coolscan IV scanner for 35mm slides.

Nikon abandoned updates on a scanner that cost me £600 in 2001 when the Windows 10 OS was introduced.

Thanks to VueScan my Nikon scanner still works perfectly at age 20.

Best wishes,

Gerrie.

West Yorkshire, England.