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4  N o v e m b e r  1 9 9 8 . If you have a HP PhotoSmart Scanner and you are annoyed about the green banding and you would like the ability to be able to scan more than one negative at a time, then this page is just for you! Hamrick Software has introduced a third party software that works with this scanner. If you own this scanner then you will know what a pain it is to feed the strip of negative into the scanner for every frame even if the frames are on the same strip. VueSmart enables you now to not only scan all the frames on the negative but also eliminate the green banding on the dark parts of the picture (a problem I keep getting) .

The capabilities of VueSmart are as follows:

• Enabling continuous negative scans on the same negative, aka batch scanning;
• Scanning unmounted slide film;
• Auto cropping;
• Eliminates green banding;

Visit http://www.hamrick.com/vsm.html for more on the VueSmart's capabilities.

Exposure

I have tested the following strip of negative, which was randomly selected, of four continuous frames to see the exposure of each frame.  All scanned at 300 dpi scanned from Superia Reala 100 negative film. Click on thumbnail for a larger image.

Conclusion: I wrote to Ed  Hamrick, author of VueSmart, who responded to my queries:- "If you turn off the Gamma adjustment in the Adjustments option, you'll get similar exposures to the HP software. The Gamma adjustment option computes a value for gamma that makes the median intensity equal 50%." From the results above it is obvious that the VueSmart software does cause overexposure to negatives with it's default settings but with Gamma turned off it was more like the HP's software.  I have scanned a couple of slides but this apparent tendency of the Vuesmart to overexpose was not evident with slide scans.  Also with the first few frames there is noise and visible banding with the VueSmart Software.

 
Colors

The following pictures are from the same slide (film: Provia 100) scanned at 1200 dpi.  I have only used Photoshop 5.0 to crop the image to the desired size, no other adjustments have been made.

(From left to right): The first picture is scanned using HP's own PhotoSmart's Scanner.   Next is a scan using VueSmart. Last is using VueSmart again, but enabling the "Brighten Dark Image" function.

Conclusion: Through these three pictures comparing to the colours on my actual slide, overall the VueSmart software with "Brighten dark image" did the best scan according to the criteria of accurate colors.
 

Sharpness

Below are blown-up scans that are chosen to represent and compare the sharpness of the respective scans:-

Conclusion: According to the pictures above, I found that the HP PhotoSmart software did the best.  If you take a close look at the phone lines, you could see that both VueSmart's scans are a bit blurred.  All three scans were done using the same dpi. Here is Ed's explanation of this difference:- "The HP software applies a sharpening filter to the image data. VueSmart gives you the unprocessed data from the CCD. You can always sharpen it later, at the expense of introducing noise."

Noise/Banding

The reason I chose the following photo is because I've scanned this photo many times trying to higher the dpi...use "Brightness/Contrast" option in Photoshop.   When highering the dpi, it was no help at all, the green banding still occurred.   Whereas my only option was to adjust the "Brightness/Contrast" to eliminate it.  That works, but it made the image unnatural and dark in many areas.   See what the VueSmart does (click on the small image for a full 600dpi scan):

Conclusion: The VueSmart software obviously eliminates the green banding in the picture but it also loses some details on the dead tree.  I guess there is no way to perfection.

Final Conclusions on the VueSmart Software

Based on the tests and comparisons mentioned above, here are my final conclusions on the VueSmart 1.3:-

Pros:

• Eliminates green banding;
• batch scans from same strip of negative;
• Truer scan colors; and
• Very small software, only 509KB, and download is 245KB

Cons:

• The interface is not as easy to use as PhotoSmart's;
• Less sharpness in scans;
• The negative strip I have scanned was severely overexposed had noise;
• 15-day trial period, US $40 to purchase;
• Without "Brighten Dark Image" function the scan is duller; and
• Does not incorporate image software for photo adjustment.

Overall, if your purposes are scanning for putting up images on webpages, the HP Photosmart is more than adequate for such purpose. My impressions on the VueSmart are generally positive though there are a couple of pitfalls like those mentioned above such as the noticeably darker scans and the green banding which showed up occationally (puzzling!). The noise/banding which cropped up on negatives but not slides was also very puzzling. Well, even  HP's own software has its own cons too...

These are just my own tests and results may vary.  Please do not rely heavily on my tests which I have conducted as a personal study and observation.  If you have any thing you would like to add (perhaps a correction or suggestions), please feel free to e-mail me.

Many thanks to Kar Yan for her excellent contribution! Do drop by her interesting photography site which has really great photos and a critique section where you get to comment on her photos. A good way to learn about composition of photos. Hope to hear more from Kar Yan in the future.
 

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