Need info on ICE-scanning slides

barbar69

Hello I'm about to begin the epic task of digitalising about 1000 35mm slides. I have been doing as much research as possible before I begin as I am an amateur.

My plan is to buy a flatbed scanner(Canon 9000f or Epson V600) and download VueScan or SilverFast software.

I gather it is important to have some good ICE software to clean up your images and was wondering does the above software include ICE or is it a seperate thing altogether? Any advice is welcome.

Thanks in advance.

DaireQuinlan

Software only dust reduction is worse than useless. Proper hardware based dust removal, ICE is one trademark, FARE is canon's similar tech (although not all levels of FARE actually have the hardware element, so check that). Basically it scans using IR light as well as the normal visible light. Film dye emulsions are transparent to IR so only the dust appears on the scan, allowing the software to isolate it and interpolate it away.
My coolscan does an ICE based scan as quickly as a normal scan, my canon fkatbed has to do a second really slow pass to do the same thing so the tech differs markedly between hardware as well.
Note that you can't use IR based dust removal for silver based B&W negatives and some varietys of it don't play nicely with kodachrome either so be aware of that.

Heebie

First.. it's digitizing.. not digitalising.

Second... if you've got color slides, I know the Epson will work well. Getting Silverfast would allow you to get fairly accurate scans without really tweaking them.. but is crap if what you want to do is correct for poor exposures. It is good for batch scanning once you get used to the interface.
Silverfast doesn't let you use the hardware-based ICE on the Epsons.. which is incredibly nice to have.. and isn't the same as the aforementioned 'software-only dust reduction'..which is just a smart gaussian blur, in truth.. so never ever ever ever ever use it.
ICE does make things take long (Including on the Nikon Coolscans that I've used in the past. on which it added about 1/3 to the total time for a single scan.) but.. the difference in the quality is stunning.
Silverfast will do a second I/R scan on a good Epson in order to get a similar result.

One bit of advice scan at a higher resolution and bit-depth than you think you'll need... you might decide you need it later. (although if you'll be keeping the scanner and the slides.. maybe you can let that bit slide.)

aidanic

Do you know what the original film is? Kodachrome or something else. The Nikon film scanners do a really good job with Kodachrome and ICE, but as other posters have mentioned, is pretty slow. You'll need some 40-50 minutes per roll of 36. I have my slides in strips of 6, and just let the scanner at it. You could be looking at 12-15 slides per hour if they are individually mounted.

Even with it being slow, the Nikon Coolscan V does great 4000dpi scans, and it's pretty close to a 30 mega-pixel camera.

I can link some Kodachrome, Ektrachrome, and Provia slides if you want to see some examples.

There's another thread around in the past week asking about negative scanning. You might want to look at it. Also, I know someone who used a mail-order service in the US this year. Need to check into that myself.

Some boardie might also be able to loan you a film scanner to get you started.

Aidan


Edit:

I've looked at the prices of the scanners you've mentioned on Amazon, and you might want to consider the Plustek 7600I film scanner, which is the same ball park, and comes with decent reviews. The 5MP €90 film scanners are not what you're after I think. Another option is to get a second hand Nikon Coolscan IV or V on eBay. Will be a bit more, but worth it IMHO.

barbar69

Ah so to get IR hardware based Ice I'd have to stump up for a better scanner. I'm kinda stuck in the EUR300 price range I think.

Im pretty sure the slides are not Kodachrome but I'm not sure what type they are.

I did have a look at the plusteks but I think they only scan 35mm slides and film. I do have have few larger negitives and some photos I'll probably scan too so that's why I was going for a flatbed.

Heebie

Plustek is the high-end of the cheapie-cheapie market generally. (They have made some really good scanners at points in the past.. the distant past.)

The Epson has hardware-based ICE.. it's not software-only.. or it wouldn't be ICE.

Having worked with the Epson lines mentioned by someone else, I can say they are truly awesome pieces of equipment. I think there is still as scaled-down version.. maybe the 4,000 he mentioned, that is not incredibly expensive, and comes with a strip-of-6 negative adapter, or can take single slides. (There may still be a slide feeder available for this line as well.. where you can stack a whole roll's worth of slides into it and batch scan them with identical settings... great if you don't need to adjust any of them.)

I doubt the price is low enough to compete with the Epsons. I've got a V500 Photo, and someone else on here has a V750 or V700 or something, and we're both happy with them. I think my Epson was like €199 when I bought it, and I think it's come down since then. It'll do 6400dpi optical resolution, although I haven't done any extenstive testing to see what the files actually come out to be.. they look good to me. I think it's a 48-bit (16-bit/channel) scanner and you can save directly to .TIF format with the software it comes with. (or with Silverfast.. although that can seems to get a bit complicated.)

if your slides are Kodachrome, it should say so on the slide mounts. If you're not sure, you could cut open one of the slide mounts (get a replacement from a lab that develops slide film in house first) and look at the emulsion of the film itself.. it'll say exactly what film it is.
Generally if it doesn't say "Kodachrome" right on the slide mounts.. it's probably E-6 process (Kodak would called it Ektachrome or Elite Chrome depending on it's age, but other companies make E-6 films as well.)

If you've got any black & white slides, they could be AGFA Scala, and they probably look magnificent... but even in it's heyday Scala was rare because it's not chemically compatible with E-6 nor Kodachrome (K-14) processing.

However you choose to go about it, I hope your scans come out great.

barbar69 wrote: »

Ah so to get IR hardware based Ice I'd have to stump up for a better scanner. I'm kinda stuck in the EUR300 price range I think.

Im pretty sure the slides are not Kodachrome but I'm not sure what type they are.

I did have a look at the plusteks but I think they only scan 35mm slides and film. I do have have few larger negitives and some photos I'll probably scan too so that's why I was going for a flatbed.