Scanner improvement with time & ICE

External Since: Mar 25, 2006 Posts: 31

Last November, I bought a Konica Minolta DiMAGE Scan Elite 5400-2 to
scan 35 mm slides and negatives and have been very happy with it. To my
surprise, i outshines three professional services I tried during that
time. In two of those three cases, one area it is head and shoulders
above the pros' scans is digital ICE removal of scratches and other
surface blemishes. (The third pro scan did just as well on that score.)

Has digital ICE improved that much over the last few years (that's when
I know one of the pros bought his scanner), or is something else going
on? If ICE has improved that much then anyone with a few year old
scanner might want to look into getting a new one. The difference is
astounding -- making almost unusable pictures (they are 65 years old!)
look almost new. Incidentally, I am amazed at how well Kodachrome
colors held up over those years, though some PSE tweaking did perk
things up. And this was for slides my father kept in his basement --
far from climate controlled conditions.

I've found GEM and ROC much less useful and don't use them in general.
Any comments there? Maybe I'm doing something wrong.

One other thing that I know has been mentioned here but is relevant:
Don't believe the statement (as in my K-M manual) that ICE doesn't work
with Kodachrome. It might not with some, but in my case you can tell
it's been a life saver.

Martin

External Since: Jul 31, 2006 Posts: 33

I purchased an hp scanjet 3970 flatbed scanner w/negative and slide
scanning and wow what a major disappointment that was. I thought my
slides were permanently damaged, the scans looked like someone had
taken a wire brush to the slides. My ambition was to digitize about
approximately 4000 of my Grandfathers slides and to create a DVD for
family members. I ended up getting a slide to video transfer unit
carousel device and transferring to DV tape. Definitely not the image
quality you guys are talking about, but definitely good enough for what
I was doing. Cheaper, faster, more efficient.
I pity the families who have one or two dog earred, yellow prints to
document an entire history of family life. Those of us who have rich
photographic histories of our families owe it to posterity to preserve
them and to make them presentable to future generations.
My grandparents golden years where the goldest golden years I have ever
seen. They went everywhere. It's sad that working class guys probably
won't have that kind of reward for longevity of service in this country
anymore.
hellman.DeleteThis@stanford.edu wrote:
> Last November, I bought a Konica Minolta DiMAGE Scan Elite 5400-2 to
> scan 35 mm slides and negatives and have been very happy with it. To my
> surprise, i outshines three professional services I tried during that
> time. In two of those three cases, one area it is head and shoulders
> above the pros' scans is digital ICE removal of scratches and other
> surface blemishes. (The third pro scan did just as well on that score.)
>
> Has digital ICE improved that much over the last few years (that's when
> I know one of the pros bought his scanner), or is something else going
> on? If ICE has improved that much then anyone with a few year old
> scanner might want to look into getting a new one. The difference is
> astounding -- making almost unusable pictures (they are 65 years old!)
> look almost new. Incidentally, I am amazed at how well Kodachrome
> colors held up over those years, though some PSE tweaking did perk
> things up. And this was for slides my father kept in his basement --
> far from climate controlled conditions.
>
> I've found GEM and ROC much less useful and don't use them in general.
> Any comments there? Maybe I'm doing something wrong.
>
> One other thing that I know has been mentioned here but is relevant:
> Don't believe the statement (as in my K-M manual) that ICE doesn't work
> with Kodachrome. It might not with some, but in my case you can tell
> it's been a life saver.
>
> Martin