Dust removal

[AnselAdamsX]

Does anyone use antistatic brushes or film cleaning materials prior to scanning? Or does everyone just rely on the software? I also wondered has anyone thought of using an antistatic brush after loading the film into the holder?

Thanks
Chris Stolpe

[Ron Marshall]

I blow the dust off of my negs, and clean the scanner glass. I don't use Ice because I rarely have dust spots.

[Brian Ellis]

I use an anti-static brush. I also wipe off the scanner glass with a lint-free rag before each scan and periodically clean the ground glass with lens cleaner.

[PViapiano]

I use an ear-wax-remover air bulb to blow my negs off before scanning (and I take a long time to do it) holding the neg almost vertically in my lint-free glove-covered hand...also a lint-free cloth on the scanner glass with a bit of Windex...

[Ed Richards]

I got one of those big - 11 inch - antistatic brushes and brush both sides of the holder with the film in at and the face of the scanner every time. Does not take long, but it really helped. Dust can hop around when you close the lid so it helps to get it off the whole area.

[Mike Herring]

I use the ZeroStat Anti Static Gun which was designed for removing dust from LP records, prior to playing them on a turntable.
This is also very useful for cleaning the dust off of film, prior to inserting the negative carier into your enlarger. After applying the antistatic charge to both sides of the film, you can blow off anying remaining dust with an ear syringe or compressed (filtered) air.

[David_Senesac]

My residence is quite dusty and given the old rug and furniture there is nothing I can do to change that. Anything exposed to the ambient room air more than a few seconds begins picking up too much dust. I clean transparencies in a small confined space where I run a robust air cleaner and then slip any slides I will be scanning into a clean sleeve. I've always disliked any of those cans of compressed air for blowing dust off either lenses or film. Way too wimpy. Far more effective is a filtered compessed air system but they are expensive. What I've used for years is a one of the industrial grade blower/vacuums used for cleaning copy machines and other computer equipment. The blower function uses a filter so it doesn't blow dust bullets at ones film or lens. It has a pinpoint adapter in order to focus the air output. The difference in the amount of dust that shows up if I don't bother with cleaning is significant enough that I'd be wasting a lot more time cloning out dust squiggles and spots if I didn't do so. Of course I regularly use the compressed air blower to clean my lenses and other photography gear too. ...David

[Turner Reich]

I use an antistatic brush ion type plugs into the wall, got tired of replacing the static master brushes and the Zerostat is no longer available.

[false_Aesthetic]

I use those radioactive brushes and canned air.
Also, its totally worth it to get a hepa filter or ionic filter for the room.

I find that useing the flextouch or other dust removers takes too much time and have a tendency to think that metalic surfaces or small highlights are dust.

Anything dust that gets scanned I just remove with the healing brush in PS. Takes me less than 15 min to spot a 300 dpi 24x30" file @ 66%.