Digital BW, The Print

> From: iceman15613 [mailto:rwshearer@...]
>
> In trying to decide on upgrades for the digital darkroom, I have
> been looking at scanners. After talking to Epson regarding the 4870,
> I am more confused than ever. I was interested in the version of
> digital ice included with their scanner. They had never heard of
> Digital Ice 4. On contacting Applied Science Fiction (Kodak) they
> advised that Digital ICE 4 is only on the Nikon 9000 scanner! I have
> an extremely large volume of Kodachrome slides to process, thus the
> interest. The programs included in the suite, ROC, SHO and GEM seem
> to be very capable. It would appear that Epson is attempting to
> foist a weak version of this software on photographers. Does anyone
> have any thoughts on this issue.I have concluded that the best setup
> at this time is a digital darkroom, processing traditional negatives.
> While digital cameras are on the train, they are a long way from the
> station!

Digital ICE uses an infrared channel in the scanner. Unfortunately,
depending upon the wavelength used, this either doesn't work at all with
Kodachrome (because it's a silver-based film, like B&W negs, and unlike E6
slides or color negs), or doesn't work very well. I've used it on K25 slides
in the Nikon LS-2000, and it helps, but definitely blurs the darker areas.

As to comparisons between digicams and film, in my opinion digicams have
caught up with 35mm (a little ahead in some areas, a little behind in
others), and only really lag when compared to medium and large format.

--

Ciao,               Paul D. DeRocco
Paul                mailto:pderocco@...