third party photo scanning software recommendations

[Knightmessenger]

I use an Epson scanner that can do film & slides. But I'm not impressed with the results that the built in Epson hardware delivers, especially for Kodachrome slides.
It usually ends up with a weird color cast or some other kind of murky colors, scanning takes a long time and unless I scan each one individually, it tends to automatically crop off part of the image in thumbnail mode, or leave too much space. There is a box I can check that is supposed to auto correct the image but this usually blows out more highlights and creates a worse color tint.

I've heard there is a software update called epson 2 that fixes a lot of issues. The problem is that update is only available for Mac computers and it doesn't look it will be done for windows because as some blog explained, epson had to make that update for Mac to keep it working at all.

Even photo prints don't look quite how they appear to my eyes unless I waste a lot of time adjusting the red green and blue sliders. And this is after I've done the windows color calibration on the monitor. I'm really hopeful there's something out there I could use that doesn't seem 10 years behind current photo software.

[DB83]

Some years ago, I dabbled with slide scanning and acquired a Plustek scanner that came with Silverfast SE software.

Check out this page to see if your scanner is supported.


https://www.silverfast.com/show/scanners-epson/en.html

[Nilzzon]

Not specifically for photos but might work https://www.hamrick.com/

[zing269]

Some time back I did some negative scanning with an Epson scanner using both VueScan and Silverfast. In the end I found myself using VueScan almost exclusively.

[Knightmessenger]

So I tried downloading the vuescan at work. (both the photo lab where I work and at home, I have epson scanners. Both using PC so can't get the new epson 2 software like Macs can) The problem was to use Vuescan for slides or negatives, you need to pay for that feature. I wasn't sure if I wanted to do that but the real issue was that it made the existing Epson software not load anymore. So I ended up uninstalling it just to keep working with the epson software I still don't like very much.

Is there a way to download the vuescan software and at least try out the free features first, without disabling the epson software that I still might need to use? Are there any good comparison articles or videos that show the difference between epson software and vuescan? I don't feel comfortable asking my boss to pay for something without either being able to do a free trial or more examples that would give me confidence in purchasing it.