LaserSoft Imaging

I'm hoping someone can clarify what I have read about iSRD not being useable when scanning Kodachrome 35mm slides. Something to do with the silver in the emulsion? As a non-professional, I am looking to buy a scanner to scan some of my old slide collection - the majority of which are Kodachrome 64ASA slides - and am contemplating a Plustek scanner. I had been tossing up between the Plustek OpticFilm 7200i SE (which has an IR channel and SilverFast SE 6.5 iSRD) and the more expensive 7500i (which has an IR channel and Silverfast Ai). Is the reported shortcoming of an IR channel a major issue when used with either/both the Silverfast SE 6.5 iSRD or Ai software? I have read that Silverfast Ai, but not Silverfast SE, has a manual mode as well as an automatic mode - so maybe by e.g. varying the sensitivity of the error detection it can produce far better and quite acceptable scratch/dust removal results without appreciable loss of quality?

Really depends on how much silver was left in the image by the processing. i scanned over 2000 from 1950-1980 and about 10 % caused issues with ICE. i use a Nikon CS4000 and 5000.

btw, you may find the IT8 option and a Kodachrome IT8 calibration slide (available usually at B&H) useful. It can get you closer to what you see in the slide on the light table.

The old cardboard mounts are a real issue with generating dust on the slide.

Dear alanson

the problem with using infrared scan data to generate a grey-scale image to automagically know where the image defects caused by dust, scratches, tiny hairs, etc. are, is that the emulsion on the film surface acts like a mirror for the light at worst, will deflect the IR light rays in any case.

As this is a problem of the infrared technology in general, it has nothing to do with iSRD, or ICE, or whatever such a method is being called.

Something similar occurs with certain other film material (e.g. Kodachrome).

The good part of the message is that SilverFast has another ace up its sleeves for such images: SRD. Although it cannot really be used fully-automatically in a batch scan, it nevertheless is quite competent in elimating image defects.

Best regards
Sonny Noack
- Manager Technical Support, LaserSoft Imaging AG -