Hi everybody,

I have been shooting in the past five years mostly B&W with 6x12 and 6x9 cameras. I develop the negative and then scan it to print it with an ink-jet(Lyson inks). I typically spend fifteen minutes or so on a single scanned negative to get rid (photoshop) of dust spots, scratches etc.

Sometime ago I decided to buy a 4x5 camera and fell in love with LF. I use quickloads (Acros 100). In some sense my workflow has not changed that much compared to the MF above: develop, scan, ink-jet print.

The curiosity to go contact printing is just too great though at this point, and I am considering to buy an 8x10 or larger camera. The problem with it is that any format greater than 4x5 will force me to abandon "sealed" film (120 or quickloads) and start using film holders. Read: more dust and scratches.

I read in this forum of people absolutely frustrated by having to deal with dust and others that flatly say they never had a problem with it. I read of people investing significant amount of their time in fighting it, from vacuum cleaning the filmholders to keeping them in ziplock bags, to increasing the humidity of the room when to put the film in the holders. I certainly do know that I am not the kind of person who is willing to put up with hours of painstakingly (manual) retouch of prints because of dust problems generated by the film holders.

So, this is the help I need from you all. HOW BAD IS THIS PROBLEM, REALLY? How much time do you typically spend on a single print to retouch it? I have already dust and scratches problems on my negatives, with non sealed film is it going only to get worse, right? And while fixing this problem in photoshop is a bore but doable, doing it with a brush and inks on a print may very well be beyond my skills. And, anyway, as I said above, I'd rather spend my time doing something else.

Thank you all for any suggestion or comment you can share with me.