Wow, good information. Looks like I'll be digging out the negatives again once I get the glass insert. Makes me wish I had more negatives/slides to scan.

If I orient my negatives as Epson recommends, they are bowed down toward the glass. I'd have to flip them, against the recommendation, to use the glass. It's worth a try though, especially for those 11x17mm negatives which were so hard to mount.

Vuescan sounds good. The bundled SilverFast was one of the most confusing Windows programs I have ever used. Astoundingly baffling.

Thanks for the info on ICE. I was wondering why it scanned everything twice. I'd rather use a wipe/liquid to clean them, but I'll have to test it on some less important images. They were SO dusty, though I couldn't see any of it with my unaided eye.

3 gigs of scans for 85 images. That's half the size of my total digital photo (JPEG) output in 8 years, 5500 pictures. Ha, just wait till I start shooting RAW with my Rebel.

Thanks again.