Winging it with the Epson v750

[Don Hutton]

I really don't think that fine tuning your scanning with Ilford Delta 3200 makes any sense.

[r.e.]

OK, I won't spend half an hour finding out how glycerine interacts with a negative, I won't do anything, ever that could conceivably damage a negative before I throw it in the trash and I'll make sure that I don't scan an ISO 3200 negative until I am an expert scanner.

Actually, I am going to see what the glycerine does, but I promise that I won't post the results.

Everybody happy now ?

[Don Hutton]

Sounds like you should have bought Kleenex while you were doing that shopping.

[Peter Lewin]

r.e.: I think you're feeling somewhat battered by all the comments about glycerin. There actually have been some other threads on alternative liquids for wet mounting. But...since we are very similar (new comers to both scanning & Photoshop) why not eliminate one variable, and just work on the scanning & PS learning curve by using the scanner without the wet mount accessory? I suspect we both have enough to learn that a little extra dust on those first few scans won't be the worst thing to deal with - if nothing else, we'll learn how to retouch it out!

[D. Bryant]

Did you see my post to the other thread about how to get Kami fluid relatively cheap? Doug
---
www.BetterScanning.com

No. What thread?

TIA,

Don Bryant

[r.e.]

Peter,

I'm not feeling battered. I simply come from an environment where people would say "cool, give it a go and see what happens", not present a litany of reasons to refrain from an experiment that takes no time and has no cost and the result of which they don't actually know themselves. And if it does react with the emulsion, as I said before, I am curious to see how. So I'm going to go ahead and not bother posting the results, because it's pretty clear that people don't want to know the results. No problem.

[Ed Richards]

r.e.,

Your original post seemed more like you wanted to work on better scan quality, not just mess around and see what happens. Messing around is fine! Since I do not give a hoot about the messed up negative school of photography, I will also not be disappointed if keep the results to yourself.:-)

The only caveat for messing around is watch and not screw up the scanner. The volatile fluids evaporate if you get them in the scanner (unless they explode) and are gone. Stuff with water in it that gets inside will be bad news, and mineral oil can also be a pain.

[walter23]

Curiosity?

Lots of people have deliberately damaged negatives, John Deakin being just one example.

In any event, I don't know what is going to happen. Nor does anyone else who has commented in this thread. So I'm going to find out

Very good points. It sounded like you were trying to find an alternative to expensive scanning fluids, so that you could get the highest possible quality scans, so I wasn't sure why you'd want to use an alternative that could wreck your negs. I'd be curious to see the results (and the above posted delta 3200 shot you deleted, because I haven't yet tried that film out).

[Bruce Watson]

You forgot razor blades. You'll likely need something to scrape the emulsion off the scanner glass when you are done (note the lack of a smiley face here).

Using any substance that contains water on a negatives is, well, let's just say it's ill-advised.

Just so you'll know, glycerin is an excellent "carrier" and is used in many topically applied drugs. It should do a dandy job of penetrating your emulsions and bringing with it any dirt and impurities that just happen to be along for the ride. And water, of course.

If you really want to try something cheap and dirty, it's conceivable that you'll have greater success with motor oil. It won't be colorless, that's true, but it's such a thin layer that you might not see it, and any color cast is easy-ish to remove in Photoshop. And, it will be very dry (little water) so the danger of turning the emulsion into a glue is considerably lessened. I don't have any idea how to remove it though, and I don't have any idea what the various additives are or what they'll do to the film or your scanner. It's clearly a use-at-your-own-risk kind of thing.

I'm continually amazed by the time and effort people will put into not using products designed for the duty. But if it's what you gotta do, it's what you gotta do.

[r.e.]

You forgot razor blades. You'll likely need something to scrape the emulsion off the scanner glass when you are done (note the lack of a smiley face here).

I'm continually amazed by the time and effort people will put into not using products designed for the duty. But if it's what you gotta do, it's what you gotta do.

Has it occurred to you that I might have a couple of sheets of glass around, cost $2.50?

The time and effort (about 30 minutes, unless it gets interesting) will be considerably less than the time and effort that has been spent trashing me for trying this.

The title says "winging it". I've said repeatedly that I'm playing around. I've said that I don't care if it damages the negatives and, if it does so, I'm interested in what the damage is. I've said that I'm just having fun. If you have a problem with that, fine, but you don't have to be condescending.