Digital Ice Technology
Digital ICE Technology & Retouching
Old film, negatives and slides are often affected by dust, hairs, fingerprints and scratches. After removing loose dust and debris, our scanners use Digital ICE technology to detect and remove many of these defects during scanning. We then manually retouch remaining issues wherever possible.
What Is Digital ICE?
Digital ICE uses infrared light to detect physical defects such as dust, hairs, fingerprints and scratches on the surface of the film. This creates additional defect information that can be used by the scanner software during processing.
More Than Automated Cleaning
Digital ICE removes many defects automatically, but the process doesn't stop there. We also try our best to manually remove remaining issues and improve the finished image wherever possible.
So How Does The Technology Work?
Digital ICE effectively captures two different sets of information from your film and uses them together to identify defects.
Image Scan
The slide, film or negative is illuminated using the scanner's standard LED light and the colour information from the image is captured.
Infrared Scan
The film is also illuminated using infrared light. This provides the scanner with information about surface defects such as dust, hairs and scratches.
Defects Removed
The image and defect information are compared by the scanner software and algorithms are used to remove many of the detected defects from the final scan.
Digital ICE & Manual Retouching
We apply Digital ICE to colour slides, slide film and negatives wherever appropriate. Unfortunately, infrared-based Digital ICE does not work effectively with traditional black & white film, but a good amount of manual retouching is still included.
Enhanced Images Are Standard
Separate Before & After Sets Are Provided With All OrdersWe provide both sets so you can see the work carried out on your images. We're proud of the care and attention that goes into every scan, and the before-and-after images let you see the difference for yourself.
