[filmscanners] Re: Nikon LS-40 vs Polaroid SS4000

["Tris Schuler" <tristanjohn@mindspring.com>]

>I know you love your Polaroid scanner. It is a great scanner. But, it will
>be a better scanner with Digital ICE.
>
>Jack Phipps
>Applied Science Fiction

I've never tried Digital Ice so I can't comment on the software itself. I
do own an SS4000, though, and for the life of me I can't see why I would
ever use it to begin with. I prepare my negatives with reasonable care (I
examine them, I brush and I blow) and sure, each one has at least one or
two defects I have to clone out, but so what? It takes a minute, maybe two.
(With me it's sometimes five or ten or fifteen minutes because I go after
_every_ defect and no matter how small, plus I pick up stuff that's not
actually a defect but I suspect will _look_ like one by the time I reduce
the image to a JPEG file.)

You want to know why I think there even is a Digital Ice? For the same
there are upgrades to scanning programs such as Vuescan and SilverFast and
whatnot. Because people like gimmicks and they've been brainwashed to
believe these gimmicks with either save them time and/or make it easier for
them to overcome their own limitations--to include laziness.

I'm no genius and I have next to no experience in these matters, I never
scanned a negative before I bought my Polaroid, yet it only took me a week
or so to discover I'd be a chump to use the Polaroid software that comes
with the SS4000 for anything other than to snatch a RAW file at 4000dpi.
That's because it took me that long to learn (albeit in a rudimentary
fashion, though I pick up new knowledge every time I work) how to use my
two primary software packages, Paint Shop Pro v7 and Photo Shop v6 to at
least equal effect.

Believe me when I tell you I am not especially deft at computer stuff in
general and possess hardly any artistic sense or talent at all. So if I can
do it I have to figure almost anyone else could as well, and probably much
more ably than I could in many cases. Yet the hordes still clamor for
Digital Ice.

I don't mean to be rude, but while that's expected it's still nonsense.
Give me something I can use, like disc brakes, and I'll buy. But please
lose the frills. I'm only into getting the best results.

Now whether or not the SS4000 and/or SS4000 plus would have greater
_perceived_ value if Digital Ice came bundled is another question
altogether. My guess is it would, my guess is that is exactly what's
happening in the mind of the buying public with regard to those scanners
that do include such software. In fact I know that to be true just from
remarks I've read on this list since I joined. But what else is new?

By the way, I would like to use Digital Ice once just to see how well it
works, but I'm rather confident I'd be disappointed in the results. I
assume the before-and-after pictures I've seen are best-case examples, and
they didn't impress me much. Certainly the work I do "by hand" is superior
all around. (And even that assumes that I'd  regularly need to do a lot of
pick-up work after the scan, when in fact I find no such labor before me as
a rule, only the odd thread and dust speck to eliminate, as noted above.)

I have a question, Jack: do you sell this equipment or related software for
a living? I ask for the reason you come across strongly as a salesman.

Tris

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