When scanning films or reflective originals, accurately defining the scan area is crucial for achieving the desired crop and optimal image quality. SilverFast 9 provides flexible tools to adjust your scan frames, especially useful for originals with uneven borders.
The red frame visible in your preview window indicates the area that will be scanned. You can easily manipulate this frame to match your image:
Move: Click and drag the frame with your mouse to reposition it.
Resize: Click and drag any of the four sides of the frame to adjust its width or height. To change two sides simultaneously, click and drag one of the frame's corners.
Rotate (Fine Rotation): To correct for unevenly aligned originals or slight tilts, move your cursor over the semicircles located at the halfway points of the frame's sides. Click and rotate these semicircles to freely adjust the frame's angle. This "fine rotation" allows you to precisely align the frame with the actual edges of your image, even if they are not perfectly straight or if the original is slightly skewed in the holder.
Precise Rotation Steps: If you need to rotate the frame in exact 45-degree increments, hold down the Shift key while rotating. This is helpful for quickly aligning to common angles or returning to a perfect horizontal/vertical orientation if you're unsure of a slight rotation.
Note: Fine rotation is not available if you have selected one of the HDR or HDRi formats.
For negatives, precise frame adjustment is particularly important because all information within the red frame is considered during the conversion from negative to positive. If a black edge surrounds the actual image within the frame, it can cause the converted image to appear brighter than intended. Adjusting the frame accurately ensures that only the relevant image data is used for conversion, leading to correct exposure and color.
You can adjust the scan frame in the standard preview and the zoomed preview modes. However, in the 1:1 preview and HQ (High Quality) preview modes, the frame is fixed and cannot be adapted. These modes are designed for assessing the quality of applied tools at 100% view rather than for frame manipulation.
SilverFast Ai Studio offers a high-resolution preview feature that can significantly improve the precision of frame detection and adjustment.
Activating High-Resolution Preview:
macOS: Go to SilverFast 9 > Settings > General.
Windows: Go to Image > Settings > General.
Activate the high-resolution preview option. This will make the initial preview scan take slightly longer but provides more exact data for more precise frame detection and automatic image optimization. Remember to define your scan resolution before performing the preview scan if you intend to use this feature.
Using Frame Search:
Click on "Frame" in the toolbar.
Select "Find frame".
Choose the matching holder you have inserted (e.g., "Slide holder 35mm"). The frame search will automatically create frames for each recognized image. The red frame always indicates the currently active frame.
Copying Settings: To save time, you can configure the active frame with your desired settings first, and then start the frame search. After the frame search is complete, you can accept the active frame's settings for all other detected frames from the "Frame" menu, provided you are in the unzoomed view of the entire flatbed.
Manual Frame Creation/Copying: You can also manually draw new frames by clicking and dragging in an empty area of the preview. To copy an existing frame with its settings, hold down the ALT key (Windows) or CMD key (macOS) while dragging an existing frame to a new position.