Epson ICE color negative banding

Has anyone experienced this? I'm getting banding on color negative scans when ICE is used on my 4990. The banding goes away when ICE is off. No banding on slides. Here is a 4x5 color negative scan with ICE off and then on.

Thanks so much

-George

I suspect that ICE in an Epson 4990 is based on density variations. It may be overreacting to minor artifacts due to scratches, development, or the line-array itself. Nikon ICE is based on infrared light. Dyes in color film are relatively transparent to IR, while dust particles (and silver emulsions) are opaque.

It doesn't look like you have a dust problem. I'd leave ICE turned off. A few dust bunnies are easier to fix than these striations.

The internals of the scanner may need cleaning, pollution can built up inside and cause artifacts and banding in scans.

However, just a few dust spots as in the first image could be quickly spotted out in a photo editor which has a "cloning" or "healing" tool.

Has anyone experienced this?

I have experienced banding, but from another brand of scanner, a Microtek i900. It was fixed by cleaning the mirrors, light tube, lens and sensor.