VueScan Newsletter - October 2024

Hello!

It gives us great pleasure to send out these newsletters. We welcome the chance to communicate with you all our latest news, and the responses we receive are always interesting and, quite often, heartwarming when VueScan has helped with a personal situation. We thank you for sharing these with us.

So, a big hello from us, regardless if you have been with us for over 20 years or are just starting out with your scanning journey 😊

As always, Ed and Dave have been working incredibly hard behind the scenes – and in this newsletter we are delighted to tell you about our latest development – the ability to colorize black and white film, slides and photos. This is a great addition to VueScan, and we are thrilled to tell you about it. Read on below for more detail!

Again, we’ve very grateful to share with you some of the many customer projects you have sent to us. Please continue to send these in as we very much enjoy learning about your work, and it never ceases to amaze us the many areas where VueScan helps someone.

As always, we appreciate all your feedback. 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 support! (And thank you for telling your friends and colleagues about us.)

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

Thank you for being with us and we look forward to hearing from you.

Beverley.

VueScan Updates

Since the last newsletter, we’ve released VueScan 9.8.37 and 9.8.36.

What’s new in version 9.8.37

• Added support for Filter | Colorize
  • Takes a black/white image and colorizes it
  • This is a Professional Edition option
  • Can experiment with it using the trial version
• Fixed problem with Firewire scanners not being found by Scanner | Find scanners
• Fixed problem with Dell B1265dfw
• Improved the size of the dots on the edge of crop boxes
• Improved TIFF compression
• Added right-click on preview image to adjust white balance
• Added Input | Media orientation option
• Added support for Ricoh fi-8040
• Added support for Ricoh fi-70F

What’s new in version 9.8.36

• Added support for more OCR languages
• Added support for Epson Perfection V19II on Windows and macOS
• Added support for Epson Perfection V39II on Windows and macOS
• Added support for Brother ADS-1800W
• Improved selection of default language on Windows
• Improved ‘Output | OCR text RTF format’ (automatic line wrapping)
• Improved visibility of crop boxes and grid lines when adjusting skew
• Improved image when ‘Input | Media’ set to ‘Color text’
• Improved image when ‘Filter | Flatten’ enabled
• Moved ‘Input | Hole punch removal’ to ‘Filter | Hole punch removal’
• Fixed problem with Nikon LS-1000
• Fixed problem with Fujitsu fi-6770
• Fixed problem with Fujitsu fi-6770A
• Fixed some problems with cropping and skew
• Fixed some problems with thumbnails
• Fixed problem with some unnecessary error messages on Linux

Q & A

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

Q) I just upgraded my Mac to Sequoia (macOS 15.0). Now VueScan doesn’t see my networked scanners. How can I fix this?

A) This happens if you tell macOS not to allow devices on the network (like scanners) to contact a program on the Mac (like VueScan). You can solve this by:

Log into the Mac computer with the user’s account that you wish to reset.
Launch Terminal.
Type the following (use upper case All and not lower case all):
tccutil reset All com.hamrick.vuescan

Q) I have a problem. How can I get help?

A) Go to www.hamrick.com and click “Support” – there’s lots of help and there’s also a search box to search for answers.

Q) My scanner isn’t working. Can you help?

A) Yes, go to this page for the most common solutions:

If you submit a problem report, be sure to say what operating system you’re using, what scanner you’re using, whether you’re using a network connection or a USB connection, and especially make sure you attach a vuescan.log file from when the problem occurs.

Q) I’m getting watermarks on my images. Can you help?

A) Yes, first get your receipt from here Then enter exactly what’s on the receipt into VueScan in the Help | About box. Use the email from the receipt, even if it no longer works for receiving email.

Q) Is there a way to launch a 2nd program session on the same computer (either MacOS, Windows or Linux) in order to speed up my scanning process?

A) Use a program like Parallels to run multiple virtual machines.

Colorize Black and White Film and Photos with VueScan

Wouldn’t it be good to bring old photos back to life? Well now you can with the latest version of VueScan!

Whether you want to colorize old family photos or black and white landscapes – by enabling our new feature you will be able to add consistent and natural colors to your old photos with just a few clicks.

We’re proud to say that this is the first of its kind for desktop scanning software – no other scanner software currently offers the ability to colorize black and white images.

This feature is a continuation of our AI work over the past year or so. In the past we’ve discussed how AI has helped us with automatic cropping, automatic media type detection and automatic hole punch removal.

Now, with the combination of advanced AI and machine learning technology, a neural network is utilized to predict what colors to use for different sections of black and white images. By analysing the content of each image, the AI intelligently determines the most suitable colors to bring your memories to life in a natural and vivid way.

Although this feature is included in the Professional version, we have made sure that it works in evaluation mode. So, if you have a Standard license, you can still try it before making a purchase.

To see examples and read more detail – including on how to get started - please read our blog here

Customer Profile

Tony Boccaccio – Amazonian Photographer

Tony Boccaccio lives in Washington, USA – but he has been an Amazonian photographer since 1972 and is a publisher of many books. Tony is an avid user of VueScan and has been kind enough to share his experiences of VueScan whilst compiling his book ‘Where Madness Follows’.

Tony tells us “The project began in 1972 when I spent 3 months in the Amazon Jungle photographing the construction of the Transamazonic Highway. I returned in 1989 and again in 1990 to document the changes that occurred since the road was built…and abandoned…and the resulting gold rush and burning of the forest. In those years I shot over 20,000 Kodachrome slides and Kodak BW film. (Some Fuji film).

I published a book, Where Madness Follows, the Search for Gold in the Amazon Jungle (Blurb.com) in 2012. I started using Silverfast in 2010, but it was too complicated. I found VueScan and immediately fell in love with it. It’s fast, ergonomically pleasing and easy to understand and navigate. It has great support – when I send an email for help, VueScan support gets back to me within the hour.

Tony says this is his favourite “THE ONE THING I REALLY LIKE IS THAT ONCE I SCAN IMAGES, I CAN GO BACK TO THE THUMBNAILS IN THE PROGRAM AND CHANGE THE COLOR SETTINGS TO IMPROVE THE SCANNING OF THE IMAGE…AND ALL I HAVE TO DO IS HIT “SAVE” AND IT IMMEDIATELY SAVES IT WITH THE NEW LEVELS. I DON’T HAVE TO SPEND TIME RESCANNING THE IMAGES.”

All images: Copyright Tony Boccaccio

“My Amazon project is never-ending. In addition to the 1000 images I scanned for my book, I just finished scanning 5000 black and white 35mm negatives from 1970-1990 to archive them in my own files because the Instituto Moreira Salles in Rio de Janeiro has accepted my donation of all my Amazon photography and research to be put into their archives. That’s 20,000+ photos and 100’s of documents, 50 tapes with interviews, and 4 diaries, and of course, my book, Where Madness Follows…. 55 years of photography and adventure….a history that will not be lost.”

The IMS is the Getty Museum of Brazil. They have 4 huge archival museums in 4 cities in Brazil. They are a cultural reservoir of Brazilian photography, music, literature, video and more.

“In short, VueScan made easy work of this huge project.”

Tony uses a Mac OS 10 iMac and a MacBook Pro MI and tells us that he still has thousands of color and B&W images to scan.

Thank you for being with us Tony and we wish you well as you continue with this project!

About the book:

“Where Madness Follows - the Search for Gold in the Amazon Jungle” is Boccaccio’s fascinating documentation of the building of the famous Transamazonic Highway and the gold rush that followed. This epic work covers 40 years of photographic documentation. His book is a rich blend of imagery and words taken from the mouths of those he encountered in his journeys through God’s Green Hell. This is the story of road builders, missionaries, Indians, colonists, prostitutes, rubber-tappers, children, and “garimpeiros” - gold miners, told in their own words. It is the story of the extraordinary and insane life of people who face Nature and impossible odds to find the precious yellow ore. They do it singlehandedly, armed with nothing more than their wits and unshakable faith. That and a dream of gold.

Tony’s book is available to purchase here.

All images: Copyright Tony Boccaccio

User Experiences

Thank you to Larry in the USA for this information.

You had asked for user experiences using VueScan.

I originally found out about VueScan when I needed a tool to scan my slides and negatives with a Nikon Coolscan. It has served faithfully for that purpose for years. No fuss, it just does what is asked.

I import the scanned images into my photo editor ON1 Photo Raw and can edit them just the same as the images from my digital camera.

When I purchased a Brother printer/scanner, I immediately started using it via VueScan.

Besides my continued reliance on it as a photographic tool, I’ve been using VueScan as part of my efforts at organization - transitioning away from paper files, removing paper clutter, and improving my ability to find things when I need them.

Here are the details in case they might be of use to others.

VueScan, in conjunction with a free, open-source program called Joplin (https://joplinapp.org is at the center of this process. Its OCR capability combined with Joplin’s folder structure, tags, and hyper-linking gives me the flexibility I need to organize forms, notices, receipts, instruction manuals, and more. When I scan a document it is scanned, OCRed, and pulled into Joplin where I can move it to the appropriate folder, and categorize it with keyword tags.

Here’s how I set things up:
VueScan settings:
-default output folder to C:\Documents\JoplinInbox
-create a PDF file
-OCR the document by checking “PDF OCR text”.

Joplin:
-install the “hotfolder” plugin
-create a folder within Joplin to act as the inbox. (I named mine Incoming)
-created a dedicated folder on the PC (I named mine C:\Documents\JoplinInbox)
-set up the “hotfolder” plugin to watch the PC folder (C:\Documents\JoplinInbox) and import anything it finds.

Larry

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.

VueScan is the best all-round scanning software I know. It is extremely comprehensive in terms of functionality and yet not very complicated to use. Even the oldest scanners (e.g. Nikon Coolscan), for which the manufacturer no longer develops the software once supplied, can be kept alive with VueScan.

VueScan’s customer support is exemplary. Within a very short time, you will receive solutions to problems or at least a further answer.

Rolf from Switzerland

I would like to sincerely thank you for the latest version 9.8.34 of VueScan. I scan a lot of slides with an old Canoscan FS4000. Up until now, I had to adjust the cropping area for almost every slide. The black border of the slide was usually not accurately detected by the software on one or two sides. With the latest update, I have noticed a significant improvement. If the slide is cut straight, the software handles the cropping much better.

Thank you for continuously developing the software. I greatly appreciate it.

Stefan,
Greetings from Germany

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