Nikon Scan ICE doesn't support B&W?

I have a Nikon 5000 ED and am scanning some black & white negatives that I developed. Somewhere in the development process I've screwed up several rolls and have lots of white specs thoughout my negatives. This would not be a problem with the Digital ICE feature in Nikon Scan 4.0 I'm using. Except this doesn't appear to work with grayscale moochrom negatives. If I enable Digital ICE with grayscale monochrome negatives it appears that I get a black -OR- white scan, i.e. no grayscale (extreme contrast). Looks awful.

I'm hoping someone can tell me I'm wrong and that I just need to flip some toggle somewhere or upgrade my software. Digital ICE in color has done wonders for my scans.

Thanks,
Dave

One_DaveT said:

I have a Nikon 5000 ED and am scanning some black & white negatives that I developed. Somewhere in the development process I've screwed up several rolls and have lots of white specs thoughout my negatives. This would not be a problem with the Digital ICE feature in Nikon Scan 4.0 I'm using. Except this doesn't appear to work with grayscale moochrom negatives. If I enable Digital ICE with grayscale monochrome negatives it appears that I get a black -OR- white scan, i.e. no grayscale (extreme contrast). Looks awful.

I'm hoping someone can tell me I'm wrong and that I just need to flip some toggle somewhere or upgrade my software. Digital ICE in color has done wonders for my scans.

Thanks,
Dave

Click to expand...

Digital Ice soesn't work with film that has developed silver halide crystals in the emulsion such as Kodachrome and black & white. I think some versions of Silver Fast have implemented Digital Ice to work with Kodachrome but I'm not certain of that.

For B&W I think your are SOL.

Don Bryant

Scan you B&W as color negs to use Digital ICE. Then desaturate the color to monotone.

Walt Calahan said:

Scan you B&W as color negs to use Digital ICE. Then desaturate the color to monotone.

Click to expand...

Walter Digital ICE doesn't work with traditional B&W regardless of what you tell the software it's scanning.

Don Bryant

Don Bryant said:

Walter Digital ICE doesn't work with traditional B&W regardless of what you tell the software it's scanning.

Don Bryant

Click to expand...

What about if you use a staining developer?

keithwms said:

What about if you use a staining developer?

Click to expand...

Same difference. The restraining factor is the prescence of developed silver halide in the emulsion.

Don Bryant

Just to expand a little on Don's answers, ICE is looking for areas that are opaque to infrared radiation. The dyes that form the image in colour films and chromogenic B&W films (and the stain in stained B&W films) transmit IR - that's why an unexposed, developed piece of colour reversal film can be used as an IR filter*. Silver and most dust is opaque to IR - though I guess that some dust transmits some IR. ICE 'thinks' that silver is dust, therefore.

Walter's comment about scanning in RGB might be a slightly misremembered reference to GEM (the grain reduction process that is in the ICE bundles). That works with silver-image B&W when scanned in RGB, according to ASF/Kodak ADC:

"Q3: Can Black & White film be used with DIGITAL GEM Technology?
A3: Traditional silver-halide and chromogenic (C41 process) Black & White film can be used on DIGITAL GEM Technology enabled scanners. When scanning these films for DIGITAL GEM Technology implementation, the film must be scanned as a color image. After DIGITAL GEM Technology processing, the color image may be converted to Black & White using an image editor.

Personally I don't like what GEM does to the appearance of silver-image film grain.

Here's a little test I did with ICE4 on some filthy Kodachrome 64:

Dead Link Removed

Notice that the ice-axe strap detail (just below and to the right of the axe's head) survived ICE.

*And why most colour filters, including the RGB ones of a Bayer array, pass IR even though they may block red.

Best,
Helen