Hey Dean. I'm usually quiet on this forum, but this is one of the few topics I've dug into to some depth. I'm running my Aztek Premiere drum scanner on my 2013 Mac Pro using a
SCSI to USB adapter and running
DPL 8.1 in a Windows 10 Pro virtual machine using Parallels Desktop, which I pay for on a subscription model for the regular updates to keep it playing nice with my Mac OS. And then since I moved from an Aztek monitor with custom profiling I had to profile my NEC monitor and put that profile into the color management settings in DPL so everything looked the same when I move the files from DPL to Photoshop.
It's an expensive setup to swallow, especially after just purchasing your drum scanner (I know I found it to be that!), but I will say that (1) I've found DPL substantially easier and more accurate to use than Silverfast, which I use with my flatbed scanner, (2) the scanning software takes up such little overhead on a modern computer that I don't even bat an eye at working in Photoshop or any other program at full steam even when the scanner is going, (3) I didn't really settle into a good scanning practice until I'd bought and put all of these pieces in place, I basically failed to make good on my investment in the scanner until I did that and (4) DPL lets you set your levels/curves for your scan file and then load those values (white and black points, etc.) through what they term a user-generated CMS file into the analog/digital converter of the drum scanner, so that you get a scan file with less combing and more gradations of tone; this is especially crucial when working with negatives which start from an extremely compressed tonal range that you're then dragging out to sit at 0 to 255 (really 10-12 and 246-248 to prevent clipping and ensure tones that will print).
I can imagine working in Silverfast if I shot mostly transparencies, where the tonality is more spread out and I wasn't having to push and pull the image to such extremes to set the tones correctly. But since I only shoot negatives and, as a result, make a CMS for every negative I scan, I can't imagine working in another piece of software. The scans I get from DPL are so beautifully subtle in tonality and I know I'm getting that only because Aztek's software has the proprietary access to the analogue/digital converter.
So all that to say: yes, you can on a Mac
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