Digital ICE w/Epson 4870

Hi all,

I just received my refurbished Epson 4870 yesterday and I love it. However, I can't seem to get Digital ICE to work. I'm scanning a 4x5 b&w negative, and I've tried several different combinations of settings, but I've not had any luck. This particular negative has several scratches and various pieces of gunk in one patch of sky.

For those that use digital ICE, does it usually do a good job of removing scratches and dust? Maybe my copy is working, but not as much as I had hoped? I didn't get a user manual with my scanner, so I'm kind of lost. Are there certain settings that yield better results?

Thanks,

Curtis

Curtis,
Digital Ice only works on RGB files. It will not work when scanning in greyscale.

KIrk,

Thanks for the reply. I believe I'm scanning it as an RGB file. Even though I told the scanner driver I'm scanning a b&w sheet of film, the image type is set to scan in 24-bit color.

Should that work?

Thanks,

Curtis

It's not how you scan (as an RGB file, as a B&W, etc.), it's what the film is. ICE only sees the dust and dirt on color film (slide or neg) but not on B&W. There is no way you can ICE to work on B&W except for the chromogenic B&W films. You will have to get rid of the dust in Photoshop, the old-fashioned way.

Curtis,
Unfortunately Digital ICE is designed for dyes. It works badly on B&W in most cases, unless it is one of the chromogenic b&w films like Ilford XP2. The silver grains of traditional silver b&w film confuses the IR scan producing odd artifacts or what amounts to no results at all.

Kirk and Alex,

Thanks for the clarification.

Alex, I got a chuckle out of your comment about removing dust and scratches the old fashioned way in Photoshop. I guess we've come a long ways since the >old< old-fashioned spot-removel techniques.

Curtis

digital ICE works by using Infra Red, or least that was how it worked on Nikon scanners when they introduced it. If the sensor detects the beam of IR, then it knows there is nothing on the neg such as dust or scratch. Scratches and dust stop or deflect the IR beam. The IR passes through dyes on transparencies. It does not pass through silver grains in B+W film so it doesn't work on B+W regardless of whether you are doing an RGB scan or not.
Flatbeds may not use IR, I don't know.

How I do dust and scratch removal.

1) Apply the dust and scratches filter to large flat areas such as the sky. Carefully use the threshold parameter to select the size of spot to be removed.

2) With the history brush, paint out any areas which were softened by 1) but which you want full detail in

3) Use the clone/brush etc to spot the remaining big ones.

Of course the best thing about the digital age is that you only have to do this the one time.