Epson V700 question for MattK and any other users

[Reschsmooth]

I use the Epson scan software instead of SilverFish as I can't get the latter to work in an efficient manner.

Using the Epson software, I am having real issues with the ICE dust removal component. Below are two crops from similar photos, one scanned with the ICE dust removal and the other without. The problems with the dust removal are very obvious. I used the Speed setting rather than Quality, but this has made no difference in the past.

For Matt and others: surely this is not to be expected? Can you think of anything I am likely to be doing wrong to get this result?

I get the same sort of result irrespective of using USM, and the size of the target scan.

With ICE:



Without ICE:

[aim54x]

I never use ICE when I use the V700 at work. I vaguely recall that ICE doesn't work with black and white.....

[Murray Foote]

That sounds right and some people say ICE can be more trouble than it's worth anyway.

I don't speak from experience though because I have a Canon 9950 and have never used Epsonscan (and Canoscan clips so it's a waste of time). Silverfast doesn't support FARE (Canon equivalent of ice) for this scanner and doesn't support the scanner for Win7-64 bit anyway. I haven't found the native Silverfast dust removal to be very useful. I would have thought Vuescan would have a dust reduction feature but I can't find one - maybe it's just not supported for my scanner (as seems to be the case with their multiscanning function).

[Matt. K]

My understanding is that ICE is only effective on coloured transparancies, (slides), and should not be used for anything else. I use a camel hair brush to get the dust off my negs and from memory, ICE does work on badly aged slides but I rarely had cause to use it. The colour restoration button on old, faded slides worked brilliantly most of the time. There is a complex method of wet oil scanning for ultimate quality that involves putting the neg or slide into a bath of clear oil and scanning through that. You have to buy the accessories from Epson in order to do that but most folk think it's not worth the effort for the small gain in quality. And it's messy to clean up. My modus operandi is to scan and then clean up in Photoshop. I should add that I don't use Silverfast and expect that there would be only very small gains in quality to be had with this software.Another important poin....make sure you have the emulsion side down if using ICE. That can make a big difference with some films....very little difference with others depending on the physical makeup of the emulsion.

[Reschsmooth]

Thanks everyone. I will use a blower to get rid of dust from the scanner glass and the negs and then clean up in Photoshop. I guess I should buy myself a camel?

I was just surprised at the seemingly poor results from the ICE, and assumed it was my fault.