RE: filmscanners: Dust removal software?

["Jawed Ashraf" <Jawed@cupidity.force9.co.uk>]

Harvey Ferdschneider wrote:
> Jawed Ashraf wrote:
>
> > Just one point: negatives get scratched, seemingly routinely by labs.  I
> > bought the LS40 for ICE, *specifically* because of scratches which were
> > driving me barmy.  Dust, by comparison, was giving me little
> problem.  So I
> > don't fall into the group: "people who sing the praises of ICE
> are people
> > who have a dust problem".  I have a scratches problem.  (I am
> now the proud
> > owner of a digicam and intend never to shoot film again - well,
> I suppose
> > I'll release the shutter on someone else's camera with film in
> it, if they
> > like...)
> >
> > So if you have negs that are scratched, then you still have to seriously
> > consider ICE.
> >
> > If you solely shoot slides and store them well then you prolly have very
> > very few scratches to deal with, ever.  I think Roger is right,
> you can then
> > remove the dust (brushing/blowing and rubber stamping) and forget ICE.
> >
>
> With regards to labs scratching negs and not slides:  Perhaps you
> are using the wrong lab?  Most high end E-6
> machines are 'dip & dunk', and that goes for high end C41
> developing machines as well.  Most scratches (in
> development) are caused by roller transport machines....So
> perhaps it would be better to find a lab with a dip
> & dunk machine?

Yes, I've come to appreciate this - for a while I even used one lab which
treated my negs with care and produced the best-exposed prints I've seen
(from my negs) - but in the end I didn't think the lab's standards were
worth paying for (I thought standards were dropping), so I made the mistake
of using Joe Bloggs's high street lab.  I didn't realise that the labs were
scratching my negs.  If I had realised, I'm not sure the implications would
have seemed that dire, as it seems to me that scanning exacerbates
scratches... and I never took photos thinking I'd be scanning them.

Unfortunately I have 15 years' worth of my own negs that have been spoilt
this way, and I'm sure the family's treasure trove of stuff going backwards
in time is fairly well damaged, though perhaps not for quite the same
reasons.  My impression is that routine, *long* scratching of negs (like the
whole bloody roll) is a symptom of the modern age - back in the day
scratches seem to have been generated rather more randomly and I have some
early films that came from high street labs that are completely devoid of
scratches.

Unlike, I suspect, the majority of peeps round here, I have a scanner purely
for "historical" scanning - I didn't buy it to scan stuff I haven't shot
yet.  I've gone digicam.

Jawed