Digital Image Correction and Enhancement (Digital ICE) is a set of technologies related to producing an altered image in a variety of frequency spectra. The objective of these technologies is to render an image more usable by Fourier or other filtering techniques. These technologies were most actively advanced in the 1960s and early 1970s in the fields of

strategic reconnaissance In military operations, military reconnaissance () or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enemy forces, the terrain, and civil activities in the area of operations. In military jargon, reconnai ...

and medical electronics. The term ''Digital ICE'' initially applied specifically to a proprietary technology developed by

Kodak The Eastman Kodak Company, referred to simply as Kodak (), is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in film photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorporated i ...

's Austin Development Center, formerly Applied Science Fiction (ASF), that automatically removes surface defects, such as

dust Dust is made of particle size, fine particles of solid matter. On Earth, it generally consists of particles in the atmosphere that come from various sources such as soil lifted by wind (an aeolian processes, aeolian process), Types of volcan ...

and scratches, from scanned images.

Technology

The ICE technology works from within the scanner, so unlike the software-only solutions it does not alter any underlying details of the image. Subsequent to the original ''Digital ICE'' technology (circa 1989), which used infrared cleaning, additional image enhancement technologies were marketed by Applied Science Fiction and Kodak under similar and related names, often as part of a suite of compatible technologies. The ICE technology uses a scanner with a pair of light sources, a normal

RGB The RGB color model is an additive color model in which the red, green, and blue primary colors of light are added together in various ways to reproduce a broad array of colors. The name of the model comes from the initials of the three ...

lamp and an

infrared Infrared (IR; sometimes called infrared light) is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than that of visible light but shorter than microwaves. The infrared spectral band begins with the waves that are just longer than those ...

(IR) lamp, and scans twice, once with each lamp. The IR lamp detects the dust locations with its unique detection method, and then inpainting is applied based on this data afterwards. The general concept is locate scratches and dust on the RGB image and mask them.

Limitations of Digital ICE

''Digital ICE'' is used to detect scratches and dust during transparent film scan and is not applicable for opaque document scanning. For some positive films with white-colored fine structures in a dark background, their opaque areas may be removed or given a fuzzy edge. While chromogenic black-and-white films are supported by ''Digital ICE'', other black-and-white films containing

metal A metal () is a material that, when polished or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electrical resistivity and conductivity, electricity and thermal conductivity, heat relatively well. These properties are all associated wit ...

lic

silver Silver is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag () and atomic number 47. A soft, whitish-gray, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. ...

, which form from

silver halide A silver halide (or silver salt) is one of the chemical compounds that can form between the Chemical element, element silver (Ag) and one of the halogens. In particular, bromine (Br), chlorine (Cl), iodine (I) and fluorine (F) may each combine wit ...

s during the development process of the film, are not. This is because the long wave

light passes through the slide but not through dust particles. The silver particles reflect the infrared light in a similar manner to dust particles, thus respond equally in

visible light Light, visible light, or visible radiation is electromagnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye. Visible light spans the visible spectrum and is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400–700 nanometres (nm ...

and infrared. A similar phenomenon also prevents Kodak

Kodachrome Kodachrome is the brand name for a color reversal film introduced by Eastman Kodak in 1935. It was one of the first successful color materials and was used for both cinematography and still photography. For many years, Kodachrome was widely used ...

slides from being scanned with ''Digital ICE''. Kodachrome's

cyan Cyan () is the color between blue and green on the visible spectrum of light. It is evoked by light with a predominant wavelength between 500 and 520 nm, between the wavelengths of green and blue. In the subtractive color system, or CMYK c ...

layer absorbs infrared.

Further development

Kodak's own scanner, the "pro-lab" Kodak HR500 Plus was equipped with ''Digital ICE'' that could scan Kodachrome slides effectively; however, this scanner was discontinued in 2005.

Nikon (, ; ) is a Japanese optics and photographic equipment manufacturer. Nikon's products include cameras, camera lenses, binoculars, microscopes, ophthalmic lenses, measurement instruments, rifle scopes, spotting scopes, and equipment related to S ...

produced the Nikon Super Coolscan LS-9000 ED scanner with a new version of ICE (Digital ICE Professional) from 2004 until it was discontinued in 2010. This was capable of scanning Kodachrome slides reliably, dust- and scratch-free, without additional software. LaserSoft Imaging released an infrared dust and scratch removal tool ( iSRD - Infrared Smart Removal of Defects) in 2008, that allows Nikon's film scanners for

Mac OS X macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

and

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

, as well as many scanners from other manufacturers to make high quality scans of Kodachrome slides.

Fujifilm , trading as , or simply Fuji, is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, operating in the areas of photography, optics, Office supplies, office and Biomedical engine ...

s system for dust and scratch removal, called "Image Intelligence", works on a similar principle as ''Digital ICE'' and will also work on Kodachrome film.

External links

Kodak official ''Digital ICE'' site

Dr. Gabriel Fielding, Eastman Kodak Company (also https://www.kodak.com/motion/hub/itp/dice/default.htm)

* J. L. C. Sanz, F. Merkle, and K. Y. Wong,
Automated digital visual inspection with dark-field microscopy
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 2, 1857-1862 (1985) * Michael J. Steinle, K. Douglas Gennette
Designing a Scanner with Color Vision (pdf)
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120416105458/http://www.hpl.hp.com/hpjournal/pdfs/IssuePDFs/1993-08.pdf , date=2012-04-16 Hewlett-Packard Journal Aug. 1993 pg 52-58 Photographic processes Image scanning Kodak

Technology

Limitations of Digital ICE

Further development

See also

External links