Digital ICE and sharpness with modern scanners

<p>Hi,</p>

<p>I did do a search here but many of the articles were pretty old soooo I thought I would ask and get some more up to date answers. </p>

<p>I am curious about how well Digital ICE works when scanning film with more modern scanners. I have an Epson V700 and to be honest I have been quite pleased with the output so far. Using this along with Silverfast has given me some wonderful results. However, I was starting to get really tired of the cleanup process... Film from a local pro lab has been good but sometimes, when I do resort to a 1 hour photo lab, I get some pretty dusty film sometimes (odd I know...). </p>

<p>I've been reluctant to use Digital ICE even though my scanner can do it because I kept hearing about the loss of sharpness / quality. I don't mind the speed so much since I was cleaning up the film in post anyway and I don't scan all my frames, just the few that I want. I did do some test scans and the results have been quite impressive, especially when I have it set to high quality as opposed to speed. But I guess I'm a bit worried about the quality when I print the scanned image at, say, 8x10 or larger. Is the loss of quality something only a pixel peeper will notice? Or has anyone done this themselves and have an opinion or a story for either pro or con Digital ICE?</p>

<p>Still new to this film media in this modern age. So any information is greatly appreciated!! Thank you in advance!</p>

 

<p>I often use the light setting of ICE. (Nikon 5000 + VueScan) I don't notice any loss in image quality. I still have to do some clean-up with PSE 7. If I were scanning very old film which has not been carefully stored then I would feel no compunction not to use maximum ICE. </p>

<p>Frankly, I have only used any of the automatic dust, etc. reduction methods in the direst straits and only when my goal was a web-posted page. I use various software - Canoscan software of different generations and VueScan.</p>

<p>In the long run any decent-sized scan will benefit from careful cleaning before scanning and then simple hand spotting afterwards, just like what was done in negative and print days. Kodachrome film especially, which is why people who don't turn off the automatic "blur" complain about how difficult Kodachrome is to scan.</p>

<p>Hmmm...perhaps it's time I re-educate myself on proper film and scanner cleaning and dust reduction methods... Know any good tutorials (and yes, I will check here too!)?</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

<p>Why worry about what you've heard. Try it and see for yourself. If you can't see the difference, then it doesn't matter. </p>

<p>Is there a sharpness concern with anything other than Kodachrome? I know that the cyan dye in Kodachrome and the relief image can cause some problems with the IR channel in ICE. Some scanners have a special ICE setting for Kodachrome. While I have seen a demonstration of a slight sharpness loss with Kodachrome and ICE, I can't see a difference with my Minolta scanner. It is worth about 15 minutes per slide when I'm scanning old material. </p>

Ron, you're right. And I have tried and so far for web and standard prints (no larger than 5x7) it looks good. I just haven't

had a chance to print larger so I thought I would ask and see. Though ultimately I have a feeling whoever gets the print

will not be scrutinizing it like we would so I suppose things will be ok.

<p>In my experience, Digital ICE on Nikon scanners doesn't have any noticable effect on sharpness, <em>provided</em> the film was processed properly. I've found that sometimes C-41 film isn't fully bleached, so that a bit of silver is still left. This can look mostly OK by eye (though I think there's some loss of quality), and also when scanned without ICE, but will cause ICE to do bad things, which certainly includes a loss of sharpness. So if you find any noticable loss of quality using ICE, try getting better processing.</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>I've been reluctant to use Digital ICE even though my scanner can do it because I kept hearing about the loss of sharpness / quality</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>You have the scanner, and the ICE function: instead of stewing over what you're hearing: <em>try</em> it, experiment, review the results.</p>

<p>FWIW, I've heard (best I can do, don't have the scanner), ICE as implemented on the V700and V750 is pretty good, but can in some instances start subtracting actual image:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.photo-i.co.uk/Reviews/interactive/Epson%20V700/page_9.htm">http://www.photo-i.co.uk/Reviews/interactive/Epson%20V700/page_9.htm</a></p>

<p>(search the page for "dust removal cleans windows too")</p>

<p>A comment to Bruce Erikson:</p>

<p>Vuescan can do cleaning using a scanner's infrared data, but it is not "ICE". Ed Hamrick has not licensed ICE. Vuescan's cleaning is not bad, especially if the cleaning needed is minor, but in my experience it somewhat clumsy: not as complete (not that ICE will get everything), and much less seamless, leaving more obvious blurring.</p>

<p>I find Vuescan cleaning ok for relatively clean color negative films I'm scanning with a Coolscan V. OTOH, for beat up color slides scanning with a Minolta Scan Elite 5400 I stayed with the OEM software and ICE for the actual scans, Vuescan's cleaning was falling short, missing too much stuff, and ham-fisted with what it did clean.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/462207&size=lg">http://www.photo.net/photo/462207&size=lg</a></p>

<p>Nice Demo, Les. </p>

<p>Two observations: </p>

<p>One: The 5000 seems "sharper" - may be due to higher scanner sharpening?</p>

<p>Two: ICE on the 9000 seems much more effective.</p>

<p>Are these your conclusions too?</p>

<p>Frankly, in the rare occasions where I do noise reduction, I have found VueScan's IR approach to do much better than ICE or the like. The latter tend to create strange artifacts in areas like tree leaves on a Kodachrome slide.</p>

<p>JDM, it might depend on the scanner. Kodachrome+ICE seems a better marriage with more diffuse light source scanners, or with scanhanser.</p>

Yikes. I have a lot to learn about scanning! Thanks to every one for the info and advice. I will certainly try it out myself

after I get back from my business trip. In the meanwhile I will do more to educate myself since I'm quite new to shooting

on film for art and creating images as opposed to just taking snapshots back in the day.

<p>Of course! And I appreciate that. Many times I use these forums as places to give me ideas of things to try or even find out about new techniques that I would have never known about. Even for this current question, I HAVE tried it and so far it's been nice. But at the same time I wanted to know how others felt and even see if there was anything I missed. For what it's worth, I'm sort of glad I'm trying out film again now instead of 15 or 20 years ago when this level of knowledge just wasn't easily accessible! </p>

 

<p>Can you say the ICE is more effective on the 9000? Look at the difference in non-ICE images. I think the 9000 has a less collimated light source that is friendlier to scratches to begin with. This also may affect the apparent sharpness or perhaps the amount of default sharpening that should be applied.</p>

<p>I use the Epson V700 with Silverfast and Digital ICE on. I find I like the results better with the unsharp mask in Silverfast at 120%. Grain tends to be emphasized but I clean it up with Neat Image software.</p>