I have Silverfast Ai and IT8 (supplied with the Artixscan 4000) and with this software it is possible to output HDR scans which are the raw data. I think that the best scans to archive are the raw files. As later you can return to these and use new better processing techniques become available without having to rescan the image. In the past I have found trying to use the HDR option extremely difficult without the Silverfast HDR software. But now Silverfast have included a tick box that allows the gamma (2.2 windows) correction to be applied to an HDR scan. For some reason I always ended up with loads of noise if I used Photoshop to apply the gamma correction. With the new option Silverfast a gamma corrected raw scan can be loaded into Photoshop 6 and by assigning the Silverfast Calibration profile and then converting it to the internal profile. This gives you an almost identical result to the usual Silverfast Ai output but you get to work on the full 12bit data in photoshop. For the lazy auto levels in PS6 produces a very similar result to the auto adjustments in Silverfast. Most of the simpler to use functions in silverfast can be performed in PS6 and it can all be done at 48 bit resolution. I am no expert but this seems to work well for slides. Negatives are probably all together different due to Silverfast specialist colour cast removal algorithms. What are the downsides ? Steve