Before giving up on your Polaroid 4000 scanner, take a look at this dust and scratch removal utility Polaroid offers for your scanner.
It isn't IR, but it does a pretty good job. Further there is an improved version based upon the same basic concept called "Dustbuster" which was made privately and I believe is also a free download, if you can locate it. Polaroid's version: http://www.polaroid.com/service/software/poladsr/poladsr.html Also check out David Yip's "dustbuster" program at: http://www.dustbuster.net/whatsnew.htm Art [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > I recently decided to try submitting some of my photography to > a stock photography company. They asked me for an initial > submission of 100 or more of my best slides as digital scans. > This is a much larger number of scans than I have attempted for > any previous project. If I succeed in selling these images to > them, I have many more that might be suitable that I will need to > scan. > > I have a Polaroid SprintScan 4000 scanner which scans at 4000 > dpi and 12 bit color depth. Unfortunately, it has no infrared > channel based system for removing dust specks from the images. > I am spending way too much time with the healing brush > deleting dust specks from each image to get 100 scans done in > a reasonable amount of time. I'm considering several > approaches to solving this problem, and I would like advice > from others about what to do. The first solution I've > considered is finding a reasonably fast and effective way of > physically cleaning the dust off the slides. I tried Rexton > Anti-static film cleaner applied to the slide with a q-tip > cotton swab. This didn't seem to work too well, and it tended > to leave cotton fibers on the slide. there seems to be a fair > number of small spots or specks, possibly something other than > dust specks that are still adhere to the slide after cleaning > with the Rexton cleaner. Are there other approaches to cleaning > the slides that I should try that might be reasonably quick and > effective? > > A second solution I'm considering if buying a new scanner with > an IR channel, such as Nikon's Coolscan V ED with digital ICE. > At the time I bought my SprintScan, scanners that both scanned at > 4000 dpi and had an IR channel were beyond my price range. The > Coolscan V now sells for the fairly reasonable price of about > $600.00. Can anybody comment on the quality of Digital ICE > vs. trying to clean the slides physically? Can anybody > comment otherwise on the relative quality of the Coolscan V > vs. my SprintScan 4000? Nikon's software for removing the > effects of film grain, for example, sounds quite impressive. > One possible disadvantage of the Coolscan V ED is that its > slide feeder apparently only holds one slide at a time, > whereas the SprintScan's feeder holds up to 4 slides at a > time. This is a significant concern, since my main reason for > considering a new scanner is to save time on large batches of > scans. The Super Coolscan 5000 ED has a 50 slide feeder > available as an accessory (but unfortunately, the Super > Coolscan costs $1100, and the SF-210 50 slide feeder costs > about $400 extra). The standard MA-21 single slide feeder for > Super Coolscan 5000 ED is identical to that used on the > Coolscan V ED, yet Nikon's website doesn't list the SF-210 50 > slide feeder as compatible with the Coolscan V. Can the SF-210 > slide feeder be made to work with the Coolscan V ED? Is there > a third party multi-slide feeder that works with the Coolscan > V ED? Thanks for any advice that you might be able to provide. > > ___________________________________________________ > Dr. Paul Patton > Life Sciences Building Rm 538A > work: (419)-372-3858 > home: (419)-352-5523 > Biology Department > Bowling Green State University > Bowling Green, Ohio 43403 > > "The most beautiful thing we can experience is > the mysterious. It is the source of all true art > and science." > -Albert Einstein > ___________________________________________________ > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body