ICE and GEM

[sojournerphoto]

Just a quick question to see what peoples experience is of using ICe and GEM when scanning C41. I gave up on Kodachrome because the loss of sharpness and haloes were impossible to live with, but it seems a bit better on C41. still I have a nagging doubt that using them costs more than it is worth sometimes.

What is your experience?

Thanks

Mike

 

[sojournerphoto]

Sorry I should have said that I find that sharpening a 'GEM'd scan is muc easier than a raw scan, where it is very easy to simply emphasise the grain. However, I'm not sure that there isn't quite a loss when you use GEM in the first place. Likewise with ICE

Mike

 

[gdi]

Which scanner are you using?

 

[sojournerphoto]

Which scanner are you using?

Nikon 5000 with Nikonscan. (I know I should try vuescan..., but I haven't got past the trial version yet)

Mike

 

[gdi]

Humm, I get good results with the 9000 and Kodachrome. For C-41, I sometimes use the lowest Gem setting and normal Ice, then sharpen in PS. I can see no degradation in quality due to ice, but Gem is noticeable.

 

[sojournerphoto]

Thanks, Ihat's my experience with GEM, but PS sharpening seems to help. I'll keep working on some different approaches...

Mike

 

[Roger Hicks]

Ice certainly reduces sharpness, but not by much; I turn it off only when I'm trying to emphasize sharpness in a manually focused small area scan. Never use GEM: don't see any advantage.

I'm pretty sure that Ice won't work with Kodachrome anyway. Maybe that's only older versions?

Cheers,

R.

 

[dseelig]

Ice with the nikom 9000 works great. It does not work as well with the 5000 the light soource is different more indirect. Ice does not work with the 4000 or 8000 coolscan models

 

[sojournerphoto]

Thanks everyone. I think the conclusion is to use ICE but not GEM. I don't mind the level of grain the 5000 extracts - if I'm shooting film it goes goes with the territory.

Mike

 

[mh2000]

First off, the IR dust removal in Vuescan completely sucks! doesn't get off all the dust and scratches and destroys sharpness. For ICE, the normal setting is a good trade off for me, "Fine" is too aggressive IMO, but still turns out a nice image. GEM was worthless in my testing, you can do everything yourself in PS with full control.

 

[gdi]

Ice certainly reduces sharpness, but not by much; I turn it off only when I'm trying to emphasize sharpness in a manually focused small area scan. Never use GEM: don't see any advantage.

I'm pretty sure that Ice won't work with Kodachrome anyway. Maybe that's only older versions?

Cheers,

R.

I suppose normal ICE will decrease sharpness a bit - but one will usually apply some sharpening for print, so it is compensated for.

And the 9000 version of ICE does work well with Kodachrome.

 

[photophorous]

I always use ICE, but I only use GEM for certain grainy C-41 films, and only on low settings. I have a Coolscan V and it can really accentuate grain in a bad way with certain films, or maybe it's just underexposed films. I've used ICE scanning slide films that I then printed at 12x18 with nice results. It may reduce sharpness very slightly, but it's worth it.

 

[Rhoyle]

I get very sharp scans using ICE with my Coolscan V. I was under the impression that you cannot use ICE with Kodachrome. Has that changed?

 

[Robert Lai]

ICE works great with Kodachrome on my CS5000. However, you have to tell Nikon Scan 4 that you are using Kodachrome film when selecting the film type. Otherwise, it works incorrectly and introduces odd artifacts.

I tried using no GEM, but the level of graininess in the scans seems excessive. A lower setting such as 2 or 3 gives acceptable smoothing of the grain with minimal loss of sharpness.

Having said that, I use Vuescan more, as the multiple exposure function of Vuescan allows the scanner to dig more detail out of the shadows. However, the infrared dust reduction setting on Vuescan is not as good as true ICE.