On Sat, 30 Jul 2005 10:05:34 -0500, Clyde wrote:
Actually no. Ed took it upon himself, instead of using the available software development kits and the working TWAIN interfaces, to write the whole thing from scratch. All the problems are his problems from his sheer arrogance at assuming he can do it better than anyone else.
I still think Vuescan is one of the best pieces of software I have ever had. It works, it works well, and it’s support is second to none. All for a very small price. If my other software was as good as this, I’d be very happy. (OK, Photoshop is right up there too.)
I think it depends what you need from it. For a Minolta user it’s absolutely useless.
My oldest scanner is a Minolta Dimage Scan Dual II. When I bought it Minolta didn’t make Mac software. I bought Vuescan, but it didn’t support it on the Mac either. (Very bad research and planning on my part.) It took a couple of months, but Ed did add this scanner to Vuescan for Mac. There were a few bug fixes, mostly that fixed problems that I didn’t have.
Since then my Minolta has scanned flawlessly with Vuescan. It works fine with my Canon flatbed scanner too. I got a great deal on a UMAX flatbed once that only Vuescan would run. UMAX is one of those companies that does a lot of things in a non-standard way. I never got UMAX drivers and software working on Windows at all. They did on the Mac, but Vuescan was way better on both systems.
I suppose there are Minolta models that Vuescan doesn’t work with. I do count 14 models under "Minolta/Konica". I am curious as to which models don’t work with Vuescan.
Several of the models he *claims* Vuescan will work with, won’t. Both the Minolta Scan Elites for a start. If you Google the scanner newsgroups for Minolta 5400 and Vuescan you’ll see that he claimed *for two years* that Vuescan would work with the original 5400 scanner. when people showed that it couldn’t. His reaction was to blame the user, say that it worked, and finally hurl abuse at anyone who disagreed with him.
I’m sorry but I wouldn’t trust anyone’s software where they refuse, despite the evidence, to see they had a problem and then hurled insults when they were proved wrong.
In fact, Vuescan has a problem with any modern Minolta scanner.
BTW, he does have some justification for thinking he can do it better. He has proven many times that he can do it better. Maybe not as often as he thinks, but it is a pretty good track record.
Shame he can’t do it better than Minolta then. Every time he releases a new version it’s as bug-ridden as the last.
Of course, no one is forced to buy or use Vuescan. It is a pretty good bet to recommend to people on newsgroups though. There isn’t too much else that will work with a wide variety of scanners that is a substitute for the manufacturer’s software.
It’s fine for the occasional user, or people who don’t work in the area for a living. They have the time to sort out methods of working which work around the bugs. I certainly wouldn’t consider it for any work where reliability is important. YMMV.
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