Digital Photographer's Software Guide - Bertemes - Net

232
The Digital Photographer's Software Guide
Comments
Over 5 million people have tried Ed Hamrick’s VueScan, and 140,000 have bought it.
Unsurprisingly, it has been given attention by dozens of reviewers, among whom there
appears to be general agreement that it provides the greatest level of control of any scanner
software you can buy. The developer readily admits that putting the full set of controls
into the hands of a novice can lead to uncertain results, but the presets are there
to allow beginners to achieve good results at the outset.
Versions: VueScan 8.4.64 (2008)
OS: Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, Vista, and x64; Mac OS X 10.3.9 and 10.4 Intel and
PowerPC; Linux
RAM: 256MB
Supported file formats: Major formats, including PDF output
Price level: Standard edition $40, Professional edition with unlimited free upgrades $80
Address: Hamrick Software, 4025 E. Chandler Blvd., Suite 70-F16, Phoenix, AZ 85048, United
States
www.hamrick.com
Summary
To restore old photographs you first need to digitize them by scanning, and then use
one of the software packages described in this chapter. Some of these packages have a
history that goes back to before the digital camera revolution, to an era when scanning
was more popular than it is today. The problem of color fading in early color photographs
made such technology essential, otherwise millions of images would have been
lost forever. There is still time to rescue those that remain, and Kodak DIGITAL ROC,
developed for this purpose, is available for the task. You can clean up damaged or
scratched images with VueScan, or use PhotoFlair, based on Dr. Edwin Lang’s Retinex
algorithm, to perform “quick-fix” style color corrections.