Silverfast iSRD

Slides and negatives always have small dust particles and tiny scratches on them, even when handled very carefully. Removing them one-by-one takes a tremendous amount of time, since often hundreds or thousands of small defects (dust grains or lint) are found on the original image, which only become visible after digitisation. Laser Soft Imaging has developed a reliable solution to this problem.

Contrary to conventional techniques Silver Fast‘s dust and scratch removal functionality is called iSRD® which is based on the hardware.

It is using the scanner‘s infrared channel for defect detection. Infrared light has a very wide wave-length, which allows it to pass through film emulsion of negatives and slides without resistance, as opposed to scratches and dust particles that reflect it. Using the iSRD setting this behavior as follows. The image is scanned two times – the first is the regular RGB scan and the second is the additional infrared scan that captures defects like dust and scratches only. Then the calculative dust and scratch removal takes effect, only where the infrared channel has detected any defects without losing any important details within the film. The results are noticeable and improves the end result. The higher the DPi the better the overall scan results will be.

We recommend scanning at 3600dpi or higher to bring out the best sharpness, clarity, colour and image quality from the film. iSRD is best for really old film.