A totally unexpected email popped up in my inbox yesterday, announcing the release of Silverfast 9. It’s a weird time of year to announce a new product, but Lasersoft are a weird company (I used to think of them as eccentric, which has a certain charm, but now they’re just weird, as in irritating).

I still like Silverfast. Actually, it’s chugging away now on my Mac, but only as a input provider to Negative Lab Pro. But this update… well, let’s see what’s new:

So, the headline feature is a new E-Book, written by Chief Mad Scientist, Wing Commander Karl-Heinz Zahorsky. Ok. I wonder what Mark Segal thinks about that?

Then we have Innovative Design. Well, from the screenshots this appears to be a touch more lipstick, only this time also available in fashionable black. I regret my cynicism, but I very much doubt that any of the outstanding usability issues have been fixed. The actual layout looks 100% identical to Silverfast 8, with - and here we have to recognise a serious accomplishment - even uglier icons.

Next up, My SilverFast Portal.  This is apparently a web page where I can see a list of licenses I own. Awesome.

And last but very much not least, SAC - Single Archive Command. Yes, we get the obsessive Air Force reference. What this does is anybody’s guess, but it claims to be a “One-click-archiving solution”.  Basically it seems to be rearranging some existing deckchairs (auto frame finding, Job Manager, VLT), and is of use only for flatbed scanners. Also, the blurb adds, without evidence, “you too can enjoy the advantages of our scan booster with the Single Archive Command” and “75% faster with SAC”.  I have no idea why scanning speed itself should be faster with SAC, or why it should be only available through SAC. Sounds a lot like bullshit to me.

So, that’s it. Apart from some other unspecified “improvements”.

And how much does it cost? Well, as ever, Lasersift is very coy about this, making you jump through all sorts of hoops to get a price.  Here’s what I found, eventually:

So, the Archive Suite, which includes Ai Studio AND HDR Studio, costs less than half the upgrade price of Ai Studio alone. Ok. Whatever.  Note the “new” prices though - not sure what they’re smoking up in there in Kiel, but I want some too.  Of course, this only allows my to run SF9 on my Plustek scanner, not on my Canon scanner.  I expect I’d have to pay the same price again to have both on SF9. And I would be very unsurprised to find that trying to run SF8 for Canon and SF9 for Plustek leads to System-Fehler-Alles-Kaput.

Anyway, I suppose I’ll buy it at some point, but based on experience the initial release is likely to be a stable as one-legged Bremerhaven dock worker after a night on the schnapps.

There is one interesting thing - apparently it supports the mythical Plustek Optic Film 120 Pro.

The website is of course a total train wreck, but you can try to check out Silverfast 9 here.

UPDATE, 21st December
Well, I did buy it. Part of the rationale was that LaserSoft have been quite generous with their upgrade policy with v8.  Certainly the first 18 months or so was just bug fixing, but some useful new features were introduced in later 8.x releases, particularly the Copy/Paste settings in Job Manager.

Well, what v9 brings to the table is actually a slight improved Job Manager dialog (all it is somewhat a case of 2 steps forwards, 1 step back), and, get this, they’ve actually REDUCED the Copy/Paste functionality.  Apart from that, there is nothing new I can find apart from a bit of a visual overhaul, which doesn’t amount to much.  The “new E-book” displayed prominently in the marketing email is not included in the release, but is yours for an extra €29.99.  This is a clear case of misadvertising in my opinion.  Then again, I doubt that the content amounts to much more than self-promotion.  I’ve had a good look, but I cannot find the “new NegaFix profiles” mentioned on the website.  One new “feature” is that v9 implements internet-managed spyware licensing. Yet another thing for LaserSoft to screw up, and they surely will.

So-called HDR-Raw files produced in Silverfast Ai v9 and processed/saved in HDR v9 open fine in HDR v8, so clearly nothing significant has changed at the level of file processing.  The much vaunted “One Click Archiving” is not enabled for my Plustek Optic Film 120, even though it can take a tray of up to 10 unmounted 35mm frames (or 5 mounted), so it could potentially be useful.

So what, substantially, do you get for your money?  Maybe stability with new OS releases? A nice warm feeling that you’ve given money to that nice Mr Zahorsky & friends?  I’m afraid that’s about it.
It is still, in my opinion, the best scanning software on the market, but from a company that’s even harder to like than Adobe. And that’s quite an accomplishment.

Some time ago, I submitted a list of carefully thought out feature requests to the appropriate section in the Silverfast forum. This, being one of the most dysfunctional software product official fora I have ever seen, my post was not uncharacteristically ignored. I am used to Silverfast’s public facing support being as unbelievably incoherent as their software, and indeed direct customer support, is good, that I just accepted that my goodwill as a customer means zero to Silverfast / Lasersoft, and the time that I spent compiling the list equally so.

But anyway, in the hope that just possibly another route might work, I’ve finally decided to post a version here. After all, this is not a list of complaints, but rather observations from a heavy Silverfast user, and features I’d like to see implemented.

I have been using Silverfast constantly for over 15 years, and even if I have some criticisms, I am happy with it, and thankful that it exists to enable me to make faithfull scans of both negatives and slides. I’m a Silverfast fan - just, as the French say, “Qui aime bien châtie bien”.

Feature requests: Most of my suggestions pertain principally to Silverfast HDR, since I always use the seperate scan/process workflow, but some may also relate to Ai. So, here we go.



Dear Silverfast,

1. Zooming

Please provide a more intuitive zoom mechanism, following general industry practices, e.g. as in Photoshop, and allows a numeric input ? Also, please provide generic 1:1 / HQ buttons outside of the processing tools, for example in the menu bar, so that these can be activated without enabling a processing tool.

The current Zoom tool is not really a zoom tool at all, more a toggle between a zoom level set elsewhere, and full image view. Therefore, the Zoom tool is only activated if the preview is in 1:1 or HQ mode (only achievable if one of the relevant tools such as USM or iSRD has been activated first), or if command-drag has been used to focus on an arbitrary rectangle. Command-Drag allows an arbitrary zoom of any given area (although it seems rather unstable), but the numeric value is known only after the zoom. Also it does not work if 1:1 or HQ is set first. Afterwards, the zoom tool is active, but only 2 settings - “zoom in” =1:1, “zoom out” = “fit in view”. To get to, say, exactly 200% is more or less impossible. Being able to zoom into an image to evaluate (e.g) sharpness is a key part of the editing process, and until Silverfast HDR offers this, it will never offer a complete solution.

2. Frame cropping

I would recommend making the ability to rotate frames a bit more obvious. The purpose of the handles is not well revealed by the closed hand pointer; a rotate icon would be better. Also, a levelling tool would be nice to have, as would be the ability to constrain cropping to a set ratio, or the existing ratio by, e.g., Shift+drag (although then the shift+click shortcut for the colour sampler would have to change)

3. Startup / Utility screen

It really isn’t clear why needs to be shown at startup, in particular in SF HDR. There is no scanner choice required, so why put up this blocking modal dialog ? It should instead be possible to open the ultility screen from the Help Menu, similarly, if I remember correctly, to SF 6. The problem is the current mechanism prevents opening images directly in SF 8. Say, for example, I have my scans organised in an external DAM application, such as Photo Supreme, which allows me to maintain permanent catalogs. From there I can open, e.g., a TIFF in Photoshop in one click, but I cannot open an HDR-TIFF in SF HDR because of this blocking dialog.

Even better would be to be able send a series of images from the external application to the Job Manager. This is not a criticism of VLT. VLT is a good basic management tool and has its place in my workflow, but it cannot create catalogs, and it is not practical for managing 1000s of scans. As far as I know, Lasersoft is not competing in the DAM software market, so what reason could there be to
not play nice with these applications?
So, please could you consider changing how the service dialog is accessed ? It would massively improve usability within a full-system workflow (And maybe not only just in HDR, although in SF-scan it is less of an issue)

4. Multiple frame selection

Multiple frame selection for film scanners. This might sound strange, but here is a use case: to scan panoramic format 35mm frames on Plustek 120, I use the Plustek-recommended method of inserting the 35mm filmstrip holder but telling Silverfast that it is a 6x9 holder. Then I can preview and set a frame on the 24x66 area. However I can load two 24x66 strips in the 35mm holder, so it would be very useful if I could then set two frames in Silverfast, as I would be able to do on a flatbed scanner. Of course, I do know that you can “queue” scans in Silverfast (set the frame, start scan, set another frame, and click scan again, it will process the second when the first has finished), but that is a feature you discover by accident, and it gives no feedback whatsoever.

5. UI stuff

- remove the IT8 button from the vertical tool bar. Since it is more of a configuration task, and in particularly in Silverfast HDR is a very specialist tool indeed, it really doesn’t belong there and is far too easy to click by accident.

- a “percentage” option in the Image Dimensions / Output options would be extremely useful.

Allow the auto-frame tool to redefine an existing frame, rather than wipe out the already set filename.

Add a colour picker (similar to the midPiP tool) to the (excellent) global colour correction tool to enable increased selection accuracy.

A configurable high/low clipping indicator would be nice too. Just about every other application has this.

Specific to VLT

- Make VLT Thumbnails update based on HDR/HDRi saved settings - including rotation.

- Make it possible to start Job Manager when in VLT mode.

- Allow deletion of files from VLT browser



Finally: I’m not here to tell Lasersoft how to run their company. My only wish is that they survive and continue to support the current product portfolio. However, I would observe that they are dramatically missing an opportunity in not fully engaging with the #FilmsNotDead movement. For a start, modernising and opening up the Silverfast forum to become the reference place to visit for expert and user to user advice on film scanning would I believe generate significant benefits for Silverfast. This would also mean opening up user to user discussion of competing products, and to be tolerant of reasonable amounts of criticism, even when it is unfair. Appointing moderators from the community can help, so that Silverfast employees do have to engage directly. This is not a revolutionary idea: it’s 2018, but the Silverfast forum is stuck in a 1998 mindset. I cannot see how getting free feedback and input from paying, engaged customers, channeled through product management could have a downside.

(Postscript: I note that Silverfast is inviting visitors to see them at Photokina. I guess to speak to a rep they'll have to line up for a ticket, get the ticket approved by a booth moderator, wait for a reply, get a ticket to reply to the reply, and so forth. Should be fun.)

It’s timely that I set out my motivations for writing this blog. Quite simply, it’s personal. I have nothing to sell, I’m not harvesting clicks, I’m not looking to grow a big audience or profile. Yes, to some extent I’d like to draw attention to my photography, despite having long ago realised firstly that this is futile, and secondly, being dependent on recognition is not a path to happiness or fulfilment. But I have no illusions or expectations that my opinions on anything amount to much, or provide anything other than very mild entertainment. I like to engage with readers, and try to answer queries and questions as best I can (most of these come via email, as a rule people don’t like commenting or debating in the public arena).

So, why is this timely? Well, I’ve been taken to task in quite a major way by a representative from Lasersoft for my last, rather unappreciative, posting on Silverfast. Since that also was via email, I will not go into details here, apart from to comment on the fact that posting it as a comment would have been far more beneficial to Lasersoft, as it shows that the company both listens and cares, and is hurt by what it sees, probably correctly, as unfair criticism. But it also reinforces that their handling of customer relations via social media needs improvement, and does their image and probably their sales a lot less good than it could.

But I will readdress my criticisms of Silverfast 8.8, and try to correct some inaccuracies.  First of all, it is again important that I set out my ground rules here. I am a paying customer of Silverfast. I have no special relationship with the company, indeed no relationship at all beyond being a customer. I have been using Silverfast for around 15 years, on Minolta, Canon and Plustek scanners, as well as the HDR version which reprocesses generic Silverfast scan files. Film photography is still important to me, and I scan standard 35mm, “panoramic” 35mm, and a range of medium format from 6x6 to 6x12. Silverfast is therefore “mission-critical” to what I do. I pay for it - and it isn’t cheap - and I expect it to work as advertised. When it works nominally, I’m very happy. When it does stuff that impresses me, I praise it. When it lets me down - which is not often - I get annoyed. When it lets me down badly, as it did recently, I get angry. And then I turn to Vuescan, and 5 minutes later, decide to give up film photography… (I know that Vuescan works for some people, but it doesn’t for me. Believe me, I’ve tried).

So, my position is that Lasersoft has a duty to me, and to other paying customers, to provide reliable software which performs the functions it is advertised to provide. In return, if I choose to write about Silverfast, I should do so fairly, and with attention to factual accuracy. Possibly neither party here has quite achieved this is the last iteration.

There is very, very little written about Silverfast on the web these days, at least not in English. Actually there’s not a great deal in Germain either. And a large proportion of that little amount is either recycled PR or individuals declaiming that “Silverfast sucks”, that it has “the worst GUI”, that it is “the worst software ever”, bla bla etc etc. None of these people have read the manual of course. Or, rather, they would not have read it if one existed. Which it doesn’t, still, for version 8, and this is a point that Lasersoft badly needs to address seriously. So, since I do write about the software and the process from time to time, reasonably fairly, and quite positively, I suppose it isn’t that surprising I get some traction on the topic, and very occasionally, some reaction from Lasersoft.

So let’s get back to 8.8. My basic problems seem to be associated with side effects of the introduction of SRDx. My rather rude dismissal of SRDx was more to do with the fact that it seemed to be destroying my workflow, rather than any actual evaluation. In fact I still haven’t evaluated it. But eventually I did what probably I should have done to start with, and used the “Reset Software” feature in both AI Studio and HDR Studio. This seemed to clear up some issues - although unfortunately it also appears to delete all of my stored presets - and I was able to complete the 64bit HDRi scans of the batch of 6x7 negatives I was working with. I ran out of time for running them through HDRi, though, although I did process one sample with SRD turned off. I’m not yet sure about the other issues I noticed, in particular the “black screen” where Silverfast seems to get confused about previews. This needs some dedicated time in order to try to replicate and report to user support.

I do retract the derogatory comments I made about the ColorServer feature, which in any case I’m in no position to evaluate. Actually I’m rather reassured that there is still professional customer demand for such a high end pro feature. And of course I made the classic mistake of assuming that since I could not, immediately, see any reason for using SRDx for digital camera file processing, then neither could anyone else. All of that was down to frustration arising from my own specific issues rather than any real complaint.

I think it is worth remembering that Silverfast has some absolutely world-class features. Just a few examples include the one-click scanner calibration, the 4-target neutral grey-balance tool, and the selective and global colour correction, which are at least on a par with recent and much lauded counterparts in CaptureOne v9. These together allow to arrive at an ideally balanced scan in way, way less time than it would take in Photoshop, even if you could work out how to do it there. Some other favourites of mine are the simultaneous, live input/output histograms and the Kodak Portra 400 NegaFix profile, which I find to be remarkably accurate. And in more recent releases, the greatly improved Job Manager, and especially the copy/paste settings feature, has saved me a lot of time.

There are areas that could be improved though, and a certain tendency towards UI bloopers which could be avoided with a little care and attention.  Simply as an example, I’m going to come back to the SRDx / iSRD issue.

When newly discovering v8.8, the first thing I’m going to look for is the banner feature, SRDx. But it isn’t there. In fact, for my Plustek OpticFilm 120 scanner, it’s hiding behind the iSRD button. Clicking on that reveals the Dust & Scratches panel, with two tabs - SRDx, and iSRD.

Initially SRDx is on top, which again, is a little weird as I’d clicked on the iSRD button. This then starts to make me wonder - is SRDx actually being promoted as superior to iSRD in all situations, including those for which IR Dust & Scratch removal works ? Is SRDx an alternative, or a complement, i.e can they work together ... or indeed should they? None of this is very clear from the interface. The mechanism that Silverfast uses in general to turn off an effect or tool is a checkbox in the title bar of the tool. It seems in this case that switching tabs activates the visible SRD option and deactivates the other, but to my mind this is weak feedback. Of course, ironically this is nothing new - the precursor to SRDx, plain vanilla SRD, lived in the same spot. But as it didn’t interest me, and was never visible by default, I never noticed.

So my conclusion must be that yes, the tabs are intended also as on/off switches. This goes against generally understood usage of tabs - as for example evident in Silverfish’s preferences popup - so I don’t think it is a good idea.

But in fact my attention was drawn to this simply because after playing around with these features a bit, I realised that the real time preview wasn’t working any more, for any tool, for example gradation. Otherwise I’d probably never have noticed!

Note, when the source file does not have a recognizable IR channel, or, I assume, the scanner does not have an IR channel, you get an SRDx button instead of iSRD…

...which, I guess, makes more sense of it all. But still, my feeling is that there must be a better way to do this for cases where both modes are available.

Final conclusion, I retract my recommendation to not touch 8.8, but as with any new release, I would say be careful, and unlike me, don’t install it when you’ve got some urgent work to do. That much is just common sense, which this time around eluded me.

I still think Silverfast is a great tool, and one that the film scanning community in particular is fortunate to still have around. The last point is on pricing. I mentioned that it costs €999. Well, yes, but that is for the fully loaded Archive Suite I use, and for the Plustek OpticFilm 120. And actually OpticFilm 120 comes with Ai Studio, priced at €658, and includes an IT8 6x7 calibration target. Depending on your scanner, the basic Archive solution comes in at €299 at the moment (hint, if you’ve got HDR Studio, you only need SE Plus as the scanning part, not Ai Studio). So yes, €999 is a bit of an extreme worst case scenario!

And then there are the entry and mid-level options, at much lower cost (under €50), and still featuring the same core scanning engine. Clearly it isn’t cheap. The competition is - at first glance - cheaper. But taking into account the output quality and the time it will save you, it’s hardly an unreasonable investment in an overall film photography budget.

So to start the New Year on a positive note, I apologise to the Silverfast team for my bad tempered rant, and I wish everybody reading this a happy and successful year of scanning. Even Vuescan users 😊

Please take the following article with a LARGE grain of salt. It’s mostly rubbish. Having calmed down, and after receiving a very hurt email from Lasersoft, I wrote this.

Around 3 or 4 years ago, when Silverfast was at version 6.5, it was urgently in need of a complete rebuild, not only to replace the antiquated and extremely convoluted user interface, but also to make it compatible with modern operating systems.  Rather than grasp this nettle, Lasersoft, to all external appearances, fiddled about, adding fake Mac Intel “support”, and various new features which added precisely zero value, but which they charged for.

Finally, they released Siverfast v8, the rebuild we needed, and while it had a bit of a rocky start, there were swift iterations, and quite soon it became reliable and dependable. Various incremental features were added, culminating in v8.5, which I wrote about when it was released. Not only was v8.5 actually useful, but it was free.  Several incremental improvements to the Job Manager followed.

Now, we have v8.8. Also free. And a total, unmitigated disaster. We seem to have gone back to the bad old days (no, I have no idea where 8.6 & 8.7 went, but 8.8 should have gone there too). We have a new iteration of the algorithmic dust & scratch removal, for scanners not equipped with an infrared channel, called “SRDx”. It has an “x” in it so it must be fabulous. Well, maybe it is. It looks less unusable than the old SRD, but that wasn’t hard to achieve. As for the results, I don’t know, but since I only have IR-channel scanners, I don’t need it.  However, what it also brings to the table is that it has apparently totally screwed up the IR version, iSRD, in Silverfast HDR.  Clicking on “SRDi” (the only was to invoke xSRD) selects xSRD by default.  There is no really obvious was to switch to SRDi, expect by clicking on a tab, but that doesn’t tell me if both are invoked or just one. Also, the 1:1 or HQ preview modes just show a black screen, or sometimes a 1:1 unprocessed view.  All real-time corrections such as curves stop working, and attempting to process an image leads to a “quiet” failure at somewhere near the start of the SRD phase.

In summary, Silverfast Archive Suite, at a stroke, becomes unusable.

They have “fixed” the appealing DNG bug from the last version, in that HDR can now correctly interpret DNGs saved by AI Studio v8.8, but not and previous versions.

This is simply not acceptable for a software suite which costs €999.

So what else does v8.8 bring us ? Apparently the SDRx thing can be used on “Digital Camera Images”.  Sorry, Mr Zahorsky, you tried that with Siverfast DC.  It won’t work. Nobody in their right mind would use Silverfast to spot-correct digital camera images.  We also get a “History” feature.  Whatever. All I see here is a sequence of black frames.  I don’t need “History”.  It doesn’t work, anyway. And as far as I can tell it isn’t saved in the “HDR” format metadata.

And there’s an option for something called ColorServer, which is not aimed at people like me, but at production environments (do analog film production environments still exist ?) and which looks a whole lot like the old hot folder feature which I seem to recall existed in v6.5.  And it costs extra. What planet are they on, really?

I don’t much like criticising Lasersoft, because the contacts I’ve had with their staff make them seem to be decent, courteous people.  On the other hand, the way they’ve implemented user to user forums (every single post moderated, with long delays) and social media communication is incompetent to the level of comedy.  Two days consulting with a social media expert would bring them more benefit than a hundred “upgrades”.

In parting, here’s my current issues list.  I had intended to send it to Lasersoft, but really, they don’t seem to care. At a corporate level, anyway.

• if the “Tool set” is supposed to remember / recall a window layout, it doesn’t work very well. For a start, the Tool-related panels (USM, iSRD, etc) get VERY confused.  They seem to show an activated state in the icon but dis-activated in the panel.
• In 24 bit mode.  The Histogram tool is floated, and stretched. When I click on 48 bit, the Histogram tool dis-activates / disappears.
• When 1:1, or HQ Mode is selected in iSRD tool, USM tool says “exact preview disabled” - it seems that previews are not shared between tools, even after they’re activated
• I often use 720dpi output.  In the resolution drop down, an entry, “Custom (720dpi)” has appeared. Very nice - except it doesn’t work. Selecting this has no effect on resolution setting.
• Histograms cannot remember that I prefer “Separate”.  SF 6.5 had no problem with this as far as I remember
• Frame resize mode cannot preserve aspect ratio - e.g SHIFT+Drag
• OpticFilm 120:  On first start up, first scan, the scanner makes a “clunk” noise, then a second, and then nothing.  To get it to work, I have to force-quit SF8, turn off the scanner, turn it on again, restart SF 8, and scan again. Usually it works on the second attempt, but not always.  After this, it will work fine for hours or days, until it is shut down.  I have tried different USB cables, different ports, USB2, USB3, same thing.  This only started with a quire recent update of SF 8 Ai.
• v8.8.  The new “SRDx”, which apparently is non-IR based, is selected automatically.  Selecting SDRi makes the preview screen go black. It is totally unclear if SDRx or SDRi are coupled, i.e work together, or separate. From the GUI, it does not seem possible to select which one you want (or both). Both get activated (possibly) by clicking on the iSRD button. Eventually, clicking back and forth makes Silverfast crash. Quelle surprise.

The net result of v8.8 is make me switch to Vuescan.  Well done, Lasersoft.

Lasersoft Imaging recently announced the release of Silverfast 8.5 at CeBit, and shortly after it became available for download.  This is the most significant update since the complete rewrite which gave us version 8, and it has some interesting sounding enhancements. The first is a much enhanced Job Manager, and the second is the new “HDRi RAW” file format. I’ve been playing around a little with v8.5 Ai Studio, and v8.5 HDR Studio, and here are some very quick, and not terribly deeply researched first impressions.

In the past some new Silverfast features could perhaps be described as over-hyped, or poorly conceived, and on top of that were charged for. But I’m pleased to say that this time around, there seem little grounds for skepticism. First of all, it’s a free upgrade, and secondly, the new features are well designed, well integrated, and genuinely useful.

The Job Manager has gained a great time saving feature inspired by applications such as Aperture or Lightroom: the ability to copy and paste adjustments from one frame to one or more others. In Silverfast it’s called “Extract & Apply”. In Aperture, “Lift & Stamp” - whatever the name, this is really welcome and is especially useful when working on large batches of files in HDR Studio.

The new “Extract & Apply” dialog in Silverfast HDR 8.5

Apart from this feature, the Job Manager, which is at the core of Silverfast’s workflow, has had a thorough refresh, and is much nicer to work with now.

The new file format, HDRi RAW, as far as I can tell retains image adjustment settings with the “HDR” file, so that they can be retained between sessions.  This is great, but so far I have to confess to being a little confused, as I thought that Silverfast HDR Studio already managed that. Possibly not, maybe it was only the case for saved Job Manager sessions.  Anyway, it works, and there is also a right-click method to reset to default within the VLT thumbnail browser.

Also, the VLT itself seems to have had some behind the scenes attention, as it feels significantly faster and responsive. Overall the application appears to have received speed and stability enhancements.

There is another new feature, the forthcoming iOS job monitor app. This seems to be more into the quirky end of Silverfast’s range of features, but I guess it might be entertaining!

In conclusion, this is one of the most comprehensive and well thought out revisions I’ve seen Silverfast receive for quite a while. It’s a good indication of the ongoing commitment of Lasersoft to their customers.

One last thing, though. The original CeBit Press Release also mentioned the re-launch, with software and hardware enhancements, of the Plustek OpticFilm 120. I haven’t seen any follow-up to that…