Curious as to how much dust is a problem

**Steven Ruttenberg** · 15-Jan-2019, 22:51

Originally Posted by Corran

I have never seen any indication of that. I have a very different scanner than you though. I scan between 3000 and 6000 depending and see no difference in dust issues.

Part of it is I live in Mesa,AZ. Dustier than Mars. I think it is partly due to being able to zoom in much closer at 100% with 6000dpi so the specks become more visible. The other part is at 6000dpi you can mage smaller sized dust specks.

Sounds like your area is not as dusty as where am at. Your lucky as I have to breath t hat crap. I saw it in the light t by e other day. Wonder I don't have asthma or worse.

**biedron** · 16-Jan-2019, 21:26

I shoot transparency film, and areas of light blue sky seem to have orders of magnitude more dust than elsewhere in the image. Probably not really, but it is just so much more obvious there. I have an Epson V700, so I'm only scanning at a resolution of ~2400.

Bob

**Steven Ruttenberg** · 16-Jan-2019, 23:51

Originally Posted by biedron

I shoot transparency film, and areas of light blue sky seem to have orders of magnitude more dust than elsewhere in the image. Probably not really, but it is just so much more obvious there. I have an Epson V700, so I'm only scanning at a resolution of ~2400.

Bob

Kick it up to 4800-6000.

**invisibleflash** · 17-Jan-2019, 08:14

Originally Posted by Jim Andrada

I think it takes more like 5 minuites to clean most negs in PS and I'm really fussy - yes, there is the occasional nightmare that got dropped on the floor or sat on by the cat. but easily 90% of the time it's a few minutes. After cleaning a few hundred it gets faster I guess

It can take a long time with LR, just depends on the neg or chrome.

**invisibleflash** · 17-Jan-2019, 08:17

Originally Posted by Steven Ruttenberg

For those who scan negatives or even old school print making. I have pretty elaborate routine and soon to add a table top clean room. Even so, there are some negatives that just have a lot of dust, while most others are minimal. It only takes me an hour at most to clean a neg in PS SO not all that bad.

Has anyone used the IR cleaning on Vuescan/Silver Fast or another program when just making a raw file? If so, how well did it Work? Color neg that is.

I've done lots of testing with Epson Digital ICE. Results vary depending on the original. Sometimes it works perfect, other times not so perfect. I was told not to post links to my sites, so can't show you the test photos.

**biedron** · 17-Jan-2019, 09:33

Originally Posted by Steven Ruttenberg

Kick it up to 4800-6000.

That will reduce the appearance of dust in blue-sky regions?

**Steven Ruttenberg** · 17-Jan-2019, 17:56

Originally Posted by biedron

That will reduce the appearance of dust in blue-sky regions?

No, what I mean is that you will see way more dust as the resolution is much greater. Same as when you fit your image on the screen you would swear there is no dust or only 1 or 2 specs. Then you zoom in. Now imagine you can zoom 20 times past that to get to 100%, you will see more dust particles that are much smaller in size than you can image at 2400 dpi. Plus, from my study (I posted the results in another thread) My V850, was not very good at 2400dpi (and that is wet scanned and focus set using the better scanning adjustable holder) As I increased the dpi, the image continued to improve until about 6000 or so dpi. I would use 6300, but the tiff files are larger than 4gb so won't work. At 6000 (multiple of 300 as I use a Canon Ipf6400) the file is just shy of 4gb for color (3 channel) and the detail is outstanding compared to 2400. Now, these files are not for the faint of heart. My files can become as large as 70gb for a working file. But I can then make a print at any size I want and not ever have to scan the file again. I also work in raw only.