Polaroid Sprintscan 45 Ultra

**Jonathan Taylor** · 18-Dec-2010, 17:59

Originally Posted by D. Bryant

This is a worthless link. It eventually takes you to the Polaroid web site where one can find a PDF file instructing the installation of scanner software. IOW, not the actual drivers or scanning software for any OS.

No, far from worthless in my experience. They have all the drivers for Polaroid scanners-- seems totally complete OS 9 and OS X and multiple languages:

http://www.opendrivers.com/categoryc...-download.html

The trick is that once you get to the final download page scroll down and use the BACKUP server. The official Polaroid links are dead as you say, but opendrivers.com lives up to it's promise. I just downloaded all the drivers for SS45 Ultra.

**Jonathan Taylor** · 19-Dec-2010, 21:22

Polaroid actually still has the latest OS X driver on an ftp site:

ftp://ftp.polaroid.com/

**Thilo Schmid** · 28-Dec-2010, 09:21

Originally Posted by Thilo Schmid

The Scanner has a bult-in white target for calibration (which should be cleaned from time to time) and VUESCAN obviously did not take this into account the same way as the original drivers did.

I have to make a correction in regard to the "white target".
Thank you Steel for pointing this out.
The 45 ultra does not have a white target. The calibration sequence is done with the lamp directly.

**Jonathan Taylor** · 28-Dec-2010, 10:05

Yeah, I just got a deal I couldn't refuse on SS45 Ultra-- $150 with a current unregistered version of Silverfast and the glass carrier. I'm very pleased with the results so far.

Like you, Thilo, I noticed the lamp calibration performed by the original Polaroid software. My first neg scan with Vuescan had diffused stripes along the long edges. I went through a great deal of trouble to get PolaColor Insight 5.5.1 running under MacOS 9 on G4 Powermac. It did the calibration and now neg scans from Vuescan are coming out beautifully without stripes.

Now I've just got to find the right combination of cards and adapters to get PolaColor Insight 5.6 running on my G5 Power Mac...

**Jonathan Taylor** · 28-Dec-2010, 10:15

A few more notes on my SS45 experiences so far:

The PolaColor Insight 5.6 Read Me file says that it's not compatible with the Adaptec SCSI cards that Apple shipped with G4 PowerMacs. I can confirm that's still true; my 2930 card won't work with v5.6 under Tiger 10.4. I have a couple other cards I'm going to try... waiting for parts.

Having been a long-time on again off again Silverfast user; I'm both pleased and saddened by becoming a Vuescan convert. For the SS45 it clearly is the winner-- not only can I scan as a DNG and go right into Adobe Camera RAW, but Vuescan also supports multi-exposure on SS45. Silverfast has a multi-exposure feature but doesn't support it on SS45.

I'll report more on getting PolaColor Insight 5.6 running under MacOS X soon...

**Jonathan Taylor** · 28-Dec-2010, 10:31

One more thing-- I've found that vibration can affect my SS45. It have it on an old, hefty wooden drafting table with my monitor and other scanners. Single sample/exposure scans come out great, but any multi-sample scans I've done are very blurry. I realized that as I type or get up from my seat the table is moving and affecting my SS45 scans. It's never been a noticeable problem for my Nikon scanners, but I'm going to be re-arranging my studio to get all scanners off the desk. I'm looking forward to having more desk space!

**hassyphoto** · 22-Jul-2015, 03:47

Dear Sprintscan 45 U Users !

I have a SS45U, on a G4 Quicksilver with an ATTO SCSI Card. (The scanner does work on my MacPro 2.1 with VueScan and an other ATTO SCSI Card too!)

Here ist the thing, scans with Vuescan come out with lines all over the frame - an issue with Vuescan not correctly calibrating the CCD against the lamp previously to the scan(stated before). On the G4 it is like with others reported, OS9 and Insight 5.5.1 and all is well. In OS X on the very same G4 and 5.5.1 in Classic enviroment - no luck.

Has anyone of you got an known good copy of Insight 5.6 for OS X ? All download sources seem to be corrupted - the file is downloaded incompletely.

To efficiently use the G4 with the SS45U as a scan-station OS X is preferable in many ways, like networking and stability.

Thanks guys, Cheers, Jan

**nonuniform** · 16-Sep-2015, 13:21

Originally Posted by hassyphoto

Dear Sprintscan 45 U Users !

I have a SS45U, on a G4 Quicksilver with an ATTO SCSI Card. (The scanner does work on my MacPro 2.1 with VueScan and an other ATTO SCSI Card too!)

Here ist the thing, scans with Vuescan come out with lines all over the frame - an issue with Vuescan not correctly calibrating the CCD against the lamp previously to the scan(stated before). On the G4 it is like with others reported, OS9 and Insight 5.5.1 and all is well. In OS X on the very same G4 and 5.5.1 in Classic enviroment - no luck.

Has anyone of you got an known good copy of Insight 5.6 for OS X ? All download sources seem to be corrupted - the file is downloaded incompletely.

To efficiently use the G4 with the SS45U as a scan-station OS X is preferable in many ways, like networking and stability.

Thanks guys, Cheers, Jan

Are you sure the problem is Vuescan? I briefly owned the 45U, and had lines using the original software. The problem turned out to be a bad SCSI cable. I've had the same problem with my drum scanner. SCSI cables go bad. That should be a sticky on some forum or other.