ICE, ICE, Baby!

After becoming completely disgruntled with the process of scanning my film negatives, I decided to do something about it before I went and did something crazy like sell my Leica and stick completely to digital capture.

Many hours of research later, I picked up a new Nikon Coolscan V. Oh man, what an improvement from my Minolta Scan Duel III! Here’s why…

• 4000dpi very clean and sharp scans in about one third the time of my old 2400dpi scanner

• No clumsy film holder – just slide the negative in and off you go

• Digital ICE

• One more time – Digital ICE

I used to spend hours scanning, then spotting each frame in Photoshop. With this latest version of ICE, dust and scratches just magically go away, with only the tiniest hint of softness as a penalty. I’ve been rescanning all sorts of old negatives and it’s quite simply a whole new animal. There’s so much to learn, but at least this makes the curve infinitely more enjoyable.