 |
|
|
| Deals: Daily / Extended | Weekly Popular | Hot Picks | Universal Binary | About | Add a File + |
Main
Members
|
User "silverdr" Profile
|
About silverdr
|
|
Recent Downloads:
|
Software Wish List:
Members can add software listings on MacUpdate to their wish list for others to view for software gift ideas
|
User Reviews
|
No, please don't say it out loud!! They might hear it and actually do it and I would really hate to see such great apps to be spoiled, bloated, rewritten in Carbon ;-) and with an unjustified, monopoly driven price tag of hundreds if not thousands of dollars... The App is great as it is! Learn how to position it within your workflow and it will do small miracles for you as it did for me and possibly many others. |
|
Hm, judging from the replies I receive I see I definitely miscommunnicated my thoughts. :-( I am actually very happy with the fact that VueScan allows me to use (otherwise completely unsupported under OS X) Adaptec's USB to SCSI adapter to connect the old SCSI scanner and that's a PLUS. I nowhere suggested that I had connectivity problems but rather the opposite - suddenly (thanks to VueScan) my old scanner was again usable without any special drivers for OSX. And for that purpose it (VueScan) serves very well and I don't have any real problems with it but also the results from 10+ yrs old hardware are adequate - I don't expect high-end result from that kind of hardware. But what I did have problems with are the higher-end scanners. I initially tried to use EPSON Perfection 4870, which was a top of the line A4 flatbet with transparency scanning capability at the time of its introduction. Since EPSON software (even if sometimes delivering good images) was/is a complete disaster to use! So I turned to VueScan and found that interface and workflow (while far from being perfect) was substantially better (i.e. "sucked" substantially less) and effective than what EPSON's or SilverFast was able to provide. That was good part. The bad part was that the final results (especially with transparencies) were poor when compared to what the hardware was capable of. The final result was that I never got satisfying results from the EPSON flatbeds. In big part it was caused by software being either virtually unusable (EPSON, partially SilverFast) or incapable of utilising the hardware/postprocess well (VueScan). The decision was to move to Nikon scanners and those were (still are) LS-5000 for 35mm and LS-9000 for medium format, which (both) I find to be rather "higher-end" and I am very satisfied with what they are capable of but again - VueScan didn't deliver anything close to accpetable when compared to what the hardware is capable of. Also it only very recently started to be able to recognise the frames on the film, it crashed, it left the scanner in unusable state after quitting (I had to power-cycle the Nikons to get them back) etc., etc. So - to sum this all up - for lower-end scanners, where one doesn't expect top-notch results - VueScan is very good and "sucks" far LESS than any other software I checked! On the other hand, when the top results are of importance and the hardware (at least those types which I tested) is capable of delivering them - VueScan doesn't hold. As I also wrote - YMMV especially if you have different scanners, they may be better supported but ALL those (higher-end) I had chance to test were not :-( Regards, silverdr |
|
Reading with comprehension isn't your strongest point, is it? If it was, you would have noticed that value (which is in direct corelation to price) is given five stars there and the range of supported scanners is what I praise a lot. But you believe that because of the app being inexpensive and actually doing some job with so many scanners - I should just STFU and not tell anyone about its shortcommings nor the poor experiences I had with the scanners I happen to work with?? P.S. My persistence didn't really help this app - It still sucks badly - This persistence only helped to fix some of the obvious problems of infrared cleaning not working at all or corrupting the images instead of working poorly. |
|
Thank you for your valuable input. Just for completeness: I did contact the author several times and we had two-way conversations couple of times. Some of the numerous "fixed problem with..." change log messages you can safely blame on my persistence in reporting and explaining to the author. This doesn't change the pure facts I presented. I could of course use more formal language in the first sentences but I believe that different form of those sentences wouldn't change the substance of my review. With kind regards, silverdr. |
|
Every couple of versions I check VueScan again and again. And you know what? It still sucks badly! Why do I keep trying? Because prectically all other scan software available on the market usually sucks even worse in one way or another. What's the strongest point of VueScan? The range of supported scanners! This is the greatest asset and Unique Selling Point. Thus - if you happen to have an older scanner, which is not supported under OS X - VueScan can be your only choice of utilising the good hardware. Gosh! Even a good USB to SCSI adapter from Adaptec is of no use under OS X until VueScan takes care of it without any extra low-level drivers... out of a sudden your venerable SCSI scanner can again be useful! The range of devices supported is just unbeatable! Now to the bad news. I might have had bad luck but practically all my (usually higher-end) scanners were delivering poor results when used with VueScan. While scanning reflective materials was still acceptable - scanning transparencies on EPSON flatbed or Nikon dedicated scanners was just an exercise I don't want to repeat. And infrared cleaning (if actually working - regardless of countless improvements, fixes, problem fixes, etc.) is still a poor joke when compared to how it should work. YMMV but I never got results I'd be satisfied with. Advice: check all the functions of the scanner you want tu use with this software. Might happen that yours will work well. Mine didn't. |
|
A very useful and well done tool. It allows to wuickly resotre the arguably much better icons of the previous Mail.app to the new one. They IMHO do not only look better and more pleasing but also are much more compliant to the usability guidelines. Thanks for that little gem, which makes replacing the appropriate resources such an easy process and spare me doing that by hand with every computer being set up. |
|
If you've paid for earlier version like 3.5 f.e. - beware! You may wish to keep 3.5 around for a while when you discover that you have to pay for the 3.6 upgrade. I very much like the app but I don't feel like paying again for the upgrade that IMHO doesn't count as MAJOR update to the app. |
|
I have to admit that the app is quickly entering maturity stage and may well be one of the quite popular among database design enabled OS X users. The recent version even managed to properly read-in and parse my hand-made DDL with lots of nasty things inside ;-) I still have some doubts concerning the data types, which could be more aligned to what the (chosen?) RDBMS supports but this is in no way a show-stopper. The author is supportive, reacts to bug reports and suggestions quickly and efficiently. Price, while not cheap is quite moderate and IMHO not too high. |
|
some time ago I tried it and it showed wrong numbers on a G5/Quad. After a long time I tried the latest version and everything I get is: 2006-11-12 20:30:29.733 MenuTemperature[10926] An uncaught exception was raised 2006-11-12 20:30:29.733 MenuTemperature[10926] *** -[NSCFArray objectAtIndex:]: index (0) beyond bounds (0) 2006-11-12 20:30:29.733 MenuTemperature[10926] *** Uncaught exception: Nov 12 20:30:31 NanJing crashdump[10927]: MenuTemperature crashed Nov 12 20:30:31 NanJing crashdump[10927]: crash report written to: /Users/silverdr/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/MenuTemperature.crash.log That's it. |
The opinions expressed in the reviews are not necessarily those of MacUpdate.
MacUpdate waives any legal binding related to the comments and opinions expressed in the reviews.
Please contact MacUpdate politely if you wish for a comment to be reviewed by MacUpdate for removal.