B&W Scan with Nikon LS4000 using ICE

[Rhodie]

B&W Scan with Nikon LS4000 using ICE
Is this possible?
Whenever I use the the ICE settings it turns out blotchy & unusable.
With ICE turned off it picks up all sorts of dust problems etc,
in spte of cleaning furiouly before hand. :bang:
Is there a 3rd party software that will allow me to use ICE with B&W film?
Thanks
Rhodie

 

[telenous]

Unfortunately ICE does not work on B&W for all the reasons you mentioned. You have to resort to a manual cleaning method (blow the dust off the negative using a compressed air canister or something similar) and after scanning, you can clean further dust/scratches with Photoshop.

 

[indridi]

a few words on ICE (and similar techniques)

ICE uses infrared as a fourth scanning channel. Since the colour dyes in color films are completely transparent to IR light, the IR channel contains only signal caused by dust. This information is then used to clean the image.

The silver in conventional b/w film, on the other hand, is not transparent to IR, therefore, ICE interprets your whole image as "noise", and try to filter it as such.

So the short answer is: no, you have to turn off ICE to be able to scan (conventional) b/w film. It will work with C41 b/w, though.

Indriði

 

[Rhodie]

Thank you both for your succint & informative replies.
I feared that the time consuming approach I had hithertoo taken, was the only way.
The IR blocking properties of B&W are new to me, but makes sense after consideration.
I am obliged to you both.
Rhodie