VueScan

What do you like best?

Vuescan provides a fast, simple, and stable platform for image scanning using a variety of devices, including specialized slide and film scanners. The program is inexpensive, and is one of the few I've encountered whose "lifetime" license is really that (at least so far-). You can update to the latest version at any time, or not. It works with local and network attached scanner resources as well, without any extra steps or unwanted complexity. As far as I am aware this a Windows only platform.

What do you dislike?

It's difficult for me to find anything negative to say about this program. It's inexpensive, reliable and easy to use. If anything, the file type support is a bit limited, but with TIFF, JPG, and PDF as options you can find something to fit into your workflow and convert to other formats if needed.

What problems are you solving with the product? What benefits have you realized?

Our initial purchase of the software was to deliver a connection to a Nikon Coolscan Slide and Film scanner which was long since discontinued by the manufacturer. VueScan provided a fast and easy interface and support for scanning full resolution from slides and negatives on the scanner. Once installed, however, it also allowed for use on other network and direct connections scanners defined on the computer. The same performance was seamless when we migrated to Windows 10 last year.