Giving Digital ICE another go...

[bmattock]

I have a Konica-Minolta Scan Dual IV and an Epson Perfection 4490 PHOTO. I use Vuescan, The GIMP, digiKam, and run Linux.

I had experimented with scanning 35mm film on the Epson, even purchasing the anti-Newton glass sold by Better Scanning (it works, but you have to gaffer's tape it down, it is not heavy enough to press the film flat). Frankly, I had not been that impressed with the resulting scans, and as some had argued - I began to see the logic of their argument that Digital ICE just ain't all that.

However, most of my negatives are fairly recent and in decent shape - my B&W are reasonably pristine, and my color are about as scratch-less as the one-hour lab can produce - which isn't great, but not terrible.

As a result, I've been using my Epson strictly for scanning my medium format efforts. That's generally B&W that I process myself, so no Digital ICE even if I had scratched my negs.

However, I recently opened an old storage container and found a treasure-trove of 35mm negatives from 1979 and 1980. These negatives had not been stored properly and were in bad shape. I scanned a few of them with my Scan Dual IV and was not really looking forward to spending hours cleaning the scratches and scrapes off the resulting scans.

On a lark, I tried some of those negatives on the Epson. I turned Digital ICE up to maximum and chose 'restore colors' and 'sharpen'. I mean, these were snapshots of my time in the military - and any result is better than no result, so I figured I had nothing to lose.

I am not displeased with the results.



I can certainly see where people get the idea that Digital ICE sucks away sharpness, but when the negs are as bad as this one was, it's nothing short of a minor miracle. Now I can scan these negs - I was going to give it up as a bad job.

And yes, using Digital ICE is SLOOOOOOW. Oh well. Can't have everything.

 

[Leighgion]

I've actually been pretty happy with Digital ICE on my Epson 4870. If it's reducing sharpness, my eyes aren't really good enough to see it thus far.

No matter how thoroughly I try to clean, there's always some dust and lint and I'd rather let the G5 chew on some data unattended than touch it up all myself even on fresh and new negatives. Helps that I can allow the G5 to dedicate to the task while I do other things on the MacBook, though often I'll just fill up the tray, start the scan and go do other things.

 

[JTK]

With Nikon V, ICE is perfect and, testing carefully, it doesn't do ANYTHING to sharpness..doesn't even soften "grain" (ie dye clouds).

A 35mm scan with Ice takes 1.5 minutes and almost never needs spotting in post-processing...that's assuming C41 or E6/E4. Kodachrome's iffy (Ice works maybe 1/3 the time with vintage Kodachrome) and it doesn't work at all with silver B&W, as everybody knows...right?

 

[Tuolumne]

I have a Konica-Minolta Scan Dual IV and an Epson Perfection 4490 PHOTO. I use Vuescan, The GIMP, digiKam, and run Linux.

I had experimented with scanning 35mm film on the Epson, even purchasing the anti-Newton glass sold by Better Scanning (it works, but you have to gaffer's tape it down, it is not heavy enough to press the film flat). Frankly, I had not been that impressed with the resulting scans, and as some had argued - I began to see the logic of their argument that Digital ICE just ain't all that.

However, most of my negatives are fairly recent and in decent shape - my B&W are reasonably pristine, and my color are about as scratch-less as the one-hour lab can produce - which isn't great, but not terrible.

As a result, I've been using my Epson strictly for scanning my medium format efforts. That's generally B&W that I process myself, so no Digital ICE even if I had scratched my negs.

However, I recently opened an old storage container and found a treasure-trove of 35mm negatives from 1979 and 1980. These negatives had not been stored properly and were in bad shape. I scanned a few of them with my Scan Dual IV and was not really looking forward to spending hours cleaning the scratches and scrapes off the resulting scans.

On a lark, I tried some of those negatives on the Epson. I turned Digital ICE up to maximum and chose 'restore colors' and 'sharpen'. I mean, these were snapshots of my time in the military - and any result is better than no result, so I figured I had nothing to lose.

I am not displeased with the results.



I can certainly see where people get the idea that Digital ICE sucks away sharpness, but when the negs are as bad as this one was, it's nothing short of a minor miracle. Now I can scan these negs - I was going to give it up as a bad job.

And yes, using Digital ICE is SLOOOOOOW. Oh well. Can't have everything.

I have an Epson 4990, and ICE is slower than manually removing scratches. A scan of a 35mm color neg @ 2400 dpi takes about 3 minutes. With ICE it takes about 30 minutes. (BTW, I have a very fast computer with 4 GB of memory). ICE is waaaay tooooo sloooow for me on the 4990.

/T

 

[JTK]

With Nikon V, ICE is perfect and, testing carefully, it doesn't do ANYTHING to sharpness..doesn't even soften "grain" (ie dye clouds).

A 35mm scan with Ice takes 1.5 minutes and almost never needs spotting in post-processing (never ever with normal negs)...that's assuming C41 or E6/E4. Kodachrome's iffy (Ice works maybe 1/3 the time with vintage Kodachrome) and it doesn't work at all with silver B&W, as everybody knows...right?

 

[JTK]

If your Ice is too slow try Photoshop CS2's dust/scratch filter. It won't touch grain or details if you're careful. It's like an improved version of Polaroid's dust/scratch...much more subtle, much less hassle. Do a light Photoshop dust/scratch and you may eliminate most reasons to spot.

 

[Tuolumne]

If your Ice is too slow try Photoshop CS2's dust/scratch filter. It won't touch grain or details if you're careful. It's like an improved version of Polaroid's dust/scratch...much more subtle, much less hassle. Do a light Photoshop dust/scratch and you may eliminate most reasons to spot.

Thanks. Seems like good advice. I'll try it next time.

/T

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

The performance of ICE, both CPU-resource-wise and "final visual results"-wise depends on so many factors, it's not funny.

After much experimentation and initial frustration, I figured out a few things, including:

- Never use multiple-scanning when applying ICE, unless you're retired or have a very patient wife/s.o.
- Know your color-calibration 123s from A to Zed. In that order. Incorrectly-profiled devices/programs/operating systems will render more perceptually-blotchy scans if you have any weak links in this chain.
- Scan in so-called "RAW" (48-bit "transparency" mode); don't let the scanning program decide what it's best. You should decide that in your final finished product, not in the very first step.
- Do not apply *any* sharpening while scanning; it'll further ruin your scanning, time-wise and perceptually.
- Follow these points only if you care. If you don't, then who cares, indeed? 🙂
- Do not yell at the scanner. It can never hear you.
- Use gloves. Your negatives and your scanner will thank you (figuratively)

 

[JTK]

...alternative advice: 1) use a Nikon 2) use Photoshop 3) have a Nikon FH-3 for certain negs 4) use defaults (ie rarely tweak the scanner in any way) 5) don't multipass until you see someone else's online evidence that it contributes...I never have 6) DON'T calibrate, trust Nikon 7) Trust your eyes and Photoshop and prints, you'll quickly learn to trust/compensate-for your monitor 8) you only need a gig with PC..but you do need one or two external hard drives for your destination and convenient backup