bob_rutkowski Posted January 26, 2004 Share Posted January 26, 2004 Hello all, I am using a Milolta Diamge III to scan in some of my slides and negs for processing in PS. I have a terrible problem with dust on the scans. It is really awful. I am very careful about cleaning the film with air and lint free cloths. I inspect the film before I insert it into the scanner and it appears to be free of dust particles. After the scan there is dust everywhere. Not just a few specs here and there. It may take me 30 minutes or more to clear up the dust specs in PS. Yes- I have the Dust Brush on - set to high. Is this a common problem for the Dimage III? Is it common to all scanners? Is the sensor dirty? Most importantly, is there anything I can do (short of spending a lot of time post-processing in PS) to imporve the scans? Frustrated - Bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derek_simpson Posted January 26, 2004 Share Posted January 26, 2004 Try scanning an empty frame - if there is dust on the scan then the sensor is likely dirty. But some film can be very dirty indeed and if the dust has attached during processing/drying then you may well be lumbered with a LOT of spotting. There are some tricks of which I am barely aware and have not used - making a layer copy and moving the layer a few pixels with certain blending modes ticked - you'd need to search deeper for this sort of thing or check out one of the big thick books (for big thick people in my case). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emre Posted January 26, 2004 Share Posted January 26, 2004 Remember to store your scanner in a plastic bag in between use. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stefanovandelli Posted January 26, 2004 Share Posted January 26, 2004 Bob, as far I know based on my limited understanding of the way a film scanner works, a dirty sensor would leave strikes (not spots) on your image. If you are sure that you are inserting the film free of dust, then it must be picking up dust from within the scanner. I keep the aperture of my scanner sealed with tape precisely to avoid this problem. On the other side, however clean you keep things you will always get some dust spots on your scans and that's why systems such as ICE are so common. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mendel_leisk Posted January 26, 2004 Share Posted January 26, 2004 Hi Bob. I'd say what you're experiencing with dust is the norm. If you are scanning color, an infrared dust detection scanner would benefit, but with what you have, expect to spend some time photoshopping the dust out. I would not brush the film with cloth, just use a hurricane blower. I typically spend at least 1/2 hour cleaning each scan. If really bad, I will take hours. I go around the image (2820dpi, same as yours) at 100% zoom ratio, which seems to work well. Zoom in more and you'll see even more crud, but start to miss the big stuff. If you're working on fresh film with only dust, it's not really that bad. Old film can have bad scratching and watermarks, and will really take a lot of time and patience to clean. The photoshop healing brush can handle most anything, I rarely resort to clone stamp. But by far most used tactic on isolated dust is explained in this tutorial: http://www.computer-darkroom.com/tutorials/tutorial_5_1.htm Another tactic I employ is to use Vuescan, save "raw files", and do my cleaning directly on those files. If I'm going to invest so much time in cleaning, I want to be cleaning the file with the greatest potential. Cheers, Mendel Leisk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
berniek Posted February 1, 2004 Share Posted February 1, 2004 Polaroid offers a free and very effective piece of dust removal software: http://www.polaroid.com/service/software/poladsr/poladsr.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bill crookston Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 You can reduce the dust problem quite a bit using a Tacky Roller Film Cleaner. I scan with a Scan Dual II and a Scan Multi II both of which don't have ICE. A unit that I use can be bought at www.boofey.com - have a look there to see how it works. Bill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alejandro_maldonado Posted May 23, 2004 Share Posted May 23, 2004 Bob, I'm also using a Minolta Dimage Scan Dual III and I'm having the exact same problem you describe. Did you solve the problem? How? Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aaron_w. Posted May 24, 2004 Share Posted May 24, 2004 I too find dust to be a big problem using my SD3 (but then again, it was a problem with my previously owned HP-S20 film scanner). I've been using a camel-hair brush and a can of compressed air to clean my film immediately before scanning. This method works pretty well for slides but as you can imagine, it's very combersome with negative strips. The Booflet film cleaner (mentioned above by Bill) seems like it would be the answer for negative strips, but I wonder how well it works with mounted slides? Also, it's fairly expensive! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phil_v. Posted May 25, 2004 Share Posted May 25, 2004 At about $90 shipped, the Booflet certainly is expensive... Not to mention that the 'sticky stuff' is also an expensive consumable item! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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