Silverfast by Taz Tally (2003, Paperback)

Several bookstores have this book in their listings for some $25.00 a copy, but none ever get it into their stock. You'll probably find it only if you are willing to pay four or five times the publisher's list price. Hooray for the immutable law of supply and demand!! Don't let the price stop you from buying the Hinderliter/Tally book, though, because it is the only hands-on reference I've ever found for the SilverFast Ai Studio scanning software. And once you've used SilverFast you'll never want to go back to any other scanning software. It's miles ahead of any other in terms of its sophisticated options and tools for tweaking your scanned negatives and slides to get a really great digital image. The LaserSoft Company (creator of SilverFast software) does sell a very good user manual for some $25.00 which does a far better than average job, to say the least, of explaining the myriad of tools -- complete with lots of monochrome screen illustrations -- available to you in the SilverFast software. The difference between the SilverFast user manual and the Hinderliter/Tally book is that the latter give specific recommendations as to what settings and what specific techniques will yield the most pleasing results for you. If you're willing to spend some 400 bucks on SilverFast software for a good scanner, it's surely worth another 125 bucks or so to acquire BOTH the user manual AND the Hinderliter/Tally book. Once you have learned to use the SilverFast up to its full potential, you'll never want to go back to any other scanner software. And you'll not learn the software completely without BOTH these books -- they complement each other really well.