Scanning - forgot about the dust

[Benjamin Marks]

So I have been shooting a lot of digital in the past year -- I had let a pretty good backlog of exposed film build up. I have started developing it and scanning and . .. BOY, I had forgotten what a pain in the gluteus maximus spotting scans for dust was. I have spent hours getting these scans to look clean. Hey, I love film, but let no one say there are not certain advantages to our brave new digital world.

Ben Marks

[nicoy3k]

try carefully but surely wiping the negatives with a kim wipe (lens/glass cleaning paper) and then blowing on it with a rocket blower.

Usually eliminates 97% percent of dust for me.

[peterc]

Ilford Anti-static cloth is good too.

[Tuolumne]

Yeah, kind of makes the dust on a digital sensor look mickey mouse by comparison.

/T

[maddoc]

Dust is really a pain ******** I roughly "clean" the neagitives with some cloth and then don't care anymore... so I have many ruined scans due to dust.

[MikeL]

Dudes, it's time to step up to the plate and muscle up. No more complaining about friggin moving nearly weightless bits off your negs/slides. I'm serious. Ya'll are starting to sound like my wife and her friends who scrapbook. If I hear one more complaint about the wrong font-size-stamp-punch-die-cut thingy, and why doesn't anyone carry it, I'm gonna burn some seriously expensive scrap paper.

We're starting to sound like scrapbookers. Let's stop now. Please.

[B_ruce]

When using chromogenic films and C41 processing, Digital Ice seems like a good option to me. How has this worked for others?

[skibeerr]

I have been saying this for years, but do they listen.........

If you can't beat the dust, join it.
I have an impressive collection of arty dust, it gives my crappy foto's that little extra.

[tensai]

if you have photoshop cs2 or cs3 i find it has become so easy to clean up dust. not in all places but most of the time either the spot healing brush tool or the patch tool work fine. a great advantage over the stamp or clone tools from before.

[xvvvz]

>>We're starting to sound like scrapbookers.<<

That is harsh!

Doug

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by MikeL

Dudes, it's time to step up to the plate and muscle up. No more complaining about friggin moving nearly weightless bits off your negs/slides. I'm serious. Ya'll are starting to sound like my wife and her friends who scrapbook. If I hear one more complaint about the wrong font-size-stamp-punch-die-cut thingy, and why doesn't anyone carry it, I'm gonna burn some seriously expensive scrap paper.

We're starting to sound like scrapbookers. Let's stop now. Please.

I have central-air, not conditioning, compressed………….how sad is that

[Benjamin Marks]

Scrap-bookers unite! In all seriousness, though, I had just forgotten about my film-scanning work-flow. The scans are of Tri-X and Fuji Neopan 400, so not exactly a grainless experience. But the end result is nice. BTW the automatic dust removal tools that came with the Nikon Coolscan 4000 do not work on standard B&W films, although I have had great success with XP2 and T400CN.

Ben

[MartinP]

Where does all this dust come from ? Surely the room was vacuumed out the day before scanning, the scanner is stored in a dust-free cupboard or drawer or cover, the film is in a dust-free sleeve or archive case . . . so I am honestly curious what the cause of the problem is. I rarely use my prehistoric Minolta, but there doesn't seem to be a great problem with dust when i do.

[Dektol Dan]

Well, you all could be 'adjusting your lives away' shooting RAW. Take your pick.

I find spotting theraputic. I have net radio on my computer. It takes no time at all to spot if one is organized in CS2 or better.
First magnify to the point of almost seeing grain. Start at the top left hand corner and make a pass to the right. Pretend you are rasterizing a TV screen and keep making horizontal passes. In five or six minutes you're done, even with a photograph with scratches. Be sure to spot before making any adjustments or you'll get to do it again, and again.

[minoltist7]

Dust isn't seen on BW paper, is it?

[Tuolumne]

Originally Posted by B_ruce

When using chromogenic films and C41 processing, Digital Ice seems like a good option to me. How has this worked for others?

It works ok if the neg isn't too dirty. Problem is - it takes 4x-5x as long to scan with ICE enabled. That is a killer for me.

/T

[Tuolumne]

Back in the days when records were made of vinyl and played on turntables, I had an ionizing gun that would shoot a stream of ionized particles at the record so dust could be easily blown away. It removed the static electricity that bound the dust to the surface. Does anything like that still exist for de-dusting slides and negatives?

/T

[kaiyen]

I find dust pretty well controlled via:

1 - dust free drying environment (embedded dust doesn't come off no matter what)

2 - Compressed air blast across strip before scanning

3 - Quick Ilford anti-static wipe before scanning

4 - Another blast of compressed air.

I also clean the auto feeder on my Nikon IV on a regular basis.

Maybe 20 minutes of post processing, including curves, levels, and spotting.

[MartinP]

Originally Posted by minoltist7

Dust isn't seen on BW paper, is it?

It is, but it seems an easy (and effective) job to blow off the negative with a rocket-blower thingy before sliding the carrier in to the enlarger. I always wondered about the plastic neg-sheets and their static electricity problem though - are these things related, the dust and self-generated static ?

[JTK]

Photoshop CS2 dust & scratch filter can be effective at such a low level that it fixes a lot without affecting detail, at least in smaller prints (letter size). Especially valuable for old big negs on a flatbed scanner, but also for negs/slides that won't Ice. Can save most of your spotting time.