filmscanners: Pros & Cons of ICE

[Raphael Bustin <rafeb@channel1.com>]

I can see where "pros" might feel that they 
can live without ICE, particularly if film 
processing is kept under very strict control.

For me, at least until quite recently (knock 
wood) that was darn-near impossible.

I have been very impressed with ICE, in just 
the few weeks that I've had to use it.  The 
"negative" effects are minimal, almost to the 
point of being impossible to detect.  I've 
thrown a few very ragged slides and negatives 
at it and been amazed at the output.  On a 
couple of these, I can state plainly that ICE 
did a better job than I could have done with 
several hours of laborious retouching.

So, yeah, for the best "ultimate" quality, 
turning off ICE and retouching by hand might 
be the way to go.  OTOH, if you're dealing with 
dreck slides, or if your time is valuable, 
ICE can be a life saver.  There's really not 
much of a compromise involved, IMHO.  At this 
point, I find I'm using it more often than not, 
even on relatively clean input, just as a 
preemptive measure against later touch-up 
work in Photoshop.

PS: At least on the 8000, the "negative effects" 
of ICE aren't softness, but noise.  It's almost 
as if the firmware/software is applying a bit 
of noise to the touch-up areas.  Pretty sneaky, 
and pretty clever, IMHO -- this is a well known 
trick for retouching.


rafe b.