VueScan’s dust removal has hard limits — IR only works on colour film, and the cleanup tools are basic. An honest look at what VueScan does well, where it falls short on dust, and a free alternative that sits neatly alongside it.

A plain-English explanation of Digital ICE — how infrared dust removal works, which films it works on, where it fails, and what modern AI alternatives do differently in 2026.

A practical guide to scanning colour and black-and-white slide film — which scanner to choose, which settings actually matter, and how to clean up the inevitable dust afterwards.

A practical walk-through for removing dust spots from scanned colour and black-and-white negatives — why negative dust behaves differently from slide dust, and how to clean it in batch.