Hi Folks:
I have used a Nikon Coolscan II LS-1000 for the last nine months. I
have used it to scan b/w negs, color negs, and slides. Here are some
observations:
1. The scanner itself is the typical, high-quality, rugged hardward
that you would expect from Nikon.
2. The software that comes with the scanner is marginal at best. It
has all the earmarks of being written by a large software corporation
in the Pacific Northwest. It is difficult to install and difficult to
use.
3. Nikon technical support is, essentially, non-existent.
I have a Windoze 95 box on my LAN that I use to run the scanner s/w and
other consumer apps like Street Atlas. The scanner came with a Win 3.1
version of its software and a Win 95 version. I could never get the
Win 95 version to recognize the scanner hardware. (The SCSI utility
found it just fine.) So I used the Win 3.1 version. It worked, but it
was really cumbersome. You have to run one program to access the
image, close it, then run another program to store the image as a disk
file. All the previewing is done in portrait orientation, so you need
a really flexible neck to work with landscape images (e.g. trains).
After six months of this, I called tech support. They never returned
my call. So I wrote a letter saying that the Win 95 version did not
work. A week or so later I received a floppy in the mail with the new
version of the Win 95 program. As nearly as I could tell, they just
took the Win 3.1 version and put a Win 95 label on it. Well, they may
have recompiled it using 32-bit instructions, but the functionality
(what there is of it) and the GUI were identical to the 16-bit version.
I run IBM's OS/2 on my other two PCs. If someone would come along with
imaging s/w that accesses the Coolscan and runs under OS/2, I would be
very, very happy. Thank you very much.
All of the color photos on my web page were scanned with the Nikon
scanner. If you would like to peruse them, point your browser to
http://www.sound.net/~wsunkel
Later,
Warren
--> SPORRS: Serious Photographers of Railroad Related Subjects
