Hamrick Software, the developer of VueScan, the world’s most widely used scanning software, has released its latest version 8.4.73 – which now includes support for multi-core processors.
Many scans are up to 50% faster when using a dual-core processor. No other scanning software has multi-core support, and for users working with very large files this will result in a significant time saving. The largest performance improvements are with infrared cleaning, grain reduction and de-screening.
“Many people use VueScan for scanning large numbers of images and documents, and this is often very CPU intensive. I’m always looking for improvements to VueScan that improve productivity. Other scanning programs such as NikonScan and Silverfast don’t use multiple cores and aren’t universal binaries on the Mac, so scanning can be painfully slow with these programs.” says Ed Hamrick, President of Hamrick Software. in the press release. “It is very common for customers to scan thousands of images with VueScan, so multi-core support along with the existing universal binary support on Mac OS X will extend VueScan’s performance advantage over other programs.”
VueScan is available for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux. VueScan offers a full range of advanced features; including options for scanning faded slides and prints and automatically adjusting images to optimum color balance that reduces the need to manually do it in Photoshop. It includes built-in IT8 color calibration of scanners, producing colors that look true to life, batch scanning and other advanced and powerful scanning and productivity features, including PDF output.
For a detailed listing of VueScan features, see: http://www.hamrick.com/abo.html.
VueScan is available in two editions, Standard Edition for US $39.95 and Professional Edition for $79.95. The Professional Edition adds unlimited free upgrades, advanced IT8 color calibration and support for raw scan files. Multi-user licenses are available. A fully functional, trial copy of VueScan can be downloaded from www.hamrick.com.
Source: Hamrick Software
Actually, that is worth noting. I use Vuescan myself, it’s already faster than the native Epson driver (semi-native, it’s not a universal application or at least doesn’t work within Photoshop without me opening Photoshop in Rosetta). I wish Vuescan could work directly within Photoshop, though, that would be helpful for me personally.
–Ron
This is one app that Apple should buy and work into Mac OS X. It’s incredibly frustrating for many people who buy scanners. It’d be nice to have them work with Mac OS X out of the box like cameras and printers usually do.
So, if you already use psd, is speed the sole point? Does it do OCR?
Great, only programs that I do not use are “multi-processor” optimized…
And when are 64 bit optimized programs are going to star coming out?
you forgot to put the /shamless plug tag at the end of this article.
but does it speed up my scanner?
I’m not a marketing tool, but I figured that I would add my two cents worth on scanners. I recently bought a Canon Canoscan 8800F (LED light source) and so far it works quite well with the Mac. Last night I used the front panel grayscale PDF button on the scanner and it actually worked with the Mac, produced the scan, made it seamless to create a PDF from multi-page scans, and worked cleanly with the Finder to define the output file location, all without reading the manual. It is the closest to a Mac-like scanning experience that I have ever had.
I don’t have too much experience with the scanner, but I figured that some of my fellow Mac users might be interested. I spent a while researching scanners before making the leap.
I do a lot of scanning and recently bought an 8-core Mac Pro. My Epson 2450 driver no longer worked so I downloaded the “most-recent” driver, which was a few years old. It was buggy, often refused to recognize my scanner, and could not scan directly to Photoshop (I had to scan, save the file, then open it in Photoshop). Vuescan immediately recognized my scanner and gave me many, many more options on how to scan and save the file. I haven’t done any scans since downloading the new version, but have been very happy with the program’s performance since I purchased it several months ago.
KingMel et al are 100% correct.
VueScan is something everyone should have (the free trial), at least for backup purposes.
@LiM “Does it do OCR?”
According to their press release back in April of 2K5:
“VueScan 8.2 adds integrated Optical Character Recognition (OCR) capability that enables users to scan and process text as well as scan graphics within one application.”
6 April 2005 Hamrick Software
VueScan was my very first scanning experience and it was a good one. Now, several years after, i just used the integrated Epson driver of my acheived scanners… works in Twain with PSD, fairly enough.
But trying out the new VueScan could be a delightfull experience… i’ll see.