Slide scanning software/settings

I am considering purchasing a used Nikon coolscan 4000 ED scanner to begin to scan my old Velvia slides and have a couple of question. I've also begun looking into SilverFast and VueScan software packages. I am completely new to scanning, but am proficient at using PhotoShop (CS5) for my digital photo editing (from RAW files). I'm not looking for software or settings that will allow me to take a slide and produce a "finished" product from the scan, but rather to produce the highest quality scan while retaining as much information from the slide as possible so I can edit in PhotoShop (similar to processing a TIFF or RAW file from a digital camera). Does anyone have recommendations for the best way to achieve this (software/setting combinations)? Again, I'm completely new to scanning, and didn't find any info on the forums that quite address this. Thanks in advance!!