in praise of 8x10 on epson v700

[Pfeiffer Duckett]

I've got a wet mount kit from aztek, and have been mounting 810 transparencies to a sheet of glass and floating them upside down by four dimes.

I've been using epson scan, which I find gives me enough room to play with the DR. (I don't understand why I can't get the same results from silverfast or vuscan. Check out the amount of detail I get scanning at 2400 ppi. I get files over 2 gigs, which would give me prints of 80" x 100" @ 240 ppi, 63" x 80" @ 300 ppi or 47" x 60" @ 400 ppi.

Anyway, here are some examples.

I've been sitting at my computer all evening hitting a bunch of keys and saying 'enhance' out loud.

[Pfeiffer Duckett]

oops, forgot to mention that I hadn't put *any* USM on this.

none!

[Chris Strobel]

Thanks for sharing this.What have you found the wet mounting gives you versus dry mounting on the V?For me it was a final end to newton rings with 8x10, but thats about it.I see no DR benefits, at least with b&w fp4+ using Epson Scan.I finally stopped the wetmounting for 4x5's and have gone back to the stock Epson 4x5 holders after doing two days of extensive testing and seeing absolutely no improvements in the final print.Also since your using the Aztec kit, I assume you use Kami fluid, have you tried Lumina fluid by any chance?

[Pfeiffer Duckett]

I've tried taping them to a piece of anti-reflective glass, but I still got newton rings. I'm not seeing any improvement on DR, or grain structure, but the lack of newton rings and the vast reduction of dust worth the heartache of wet mounting. I've just been using Kami, the fumes haven't bothered me. I probably would have gone for Lumina, but the Kami was cheaper and I like the convenience of having everything come as a kit.

[Chris Strobel]

I've tried taping them to a piece of anti-reflective glass, but I still got newton rings. I'm not seeing any improvement on DR, or grain structure, but the lack of newton rings and the vast reduction of dust worth the heartache of wet mounting. I've just been using Kami, the fumes haven't bothered me. I probably would have gone for Lumina, but the Kami was cheaper and I like the convenience of having everything come as a kit.

Sounds about right.How have you found Kami as far as leaving residue behind?Lumina is not suppose to leave any residue, but it does, not a lot, but enough to require cleaning afterwords.

[Peter De Smidt]

All of the scanning fluids I've tried leave a residue: Kami, Prazio, Lumina...

[Lei Meng]

I too found those fluids leave residue so I quit using them.

As long as there's no Newton ring, 8x10 scan from those flatbed scanner is awesome (I use a Microtek 1800f). I print them to 40x50 inch size, that's only 5x enlargement.

Just my co-praise

[Brian Vuillemenot]

Thanks for sharing this.What have you found the wet mounting gives you versus dry mounting on the V?For me it was a final end to newton rings with 8x10, but thats about it.I see no DR benefits, at least with b&w fp4+ using Epson Scan.I finally stopped the wetmounting for 4x5's and have gone back to the stock Epson 4x5 holders after doing two days of extensive testing and seeing absolutely no improvements in the final print.Also since your using the Aztec kit, I assume you use Kami fluid, have you tried Lumina fluid by any chance?

This was my experience with Lumina wet mounting. For 4X5, it gave no benefit over scanning dry in the Epson 4X5 holders. On the downside, it made cleaning up the scans more time consuming because of all the dirt and air bubbles that resulted from wet mounting. I only use wet mounting for larger film to hold it flat, since I don't have a holder for 8X10 or 4X10 film.

[Pfeiffer Duckett]

really? you're getting more dirt from wet mounting? The bubbles, you need to just guide them to the edge with a pec-pad to get rid of them, or use more fluid.

I am getting residue, and I'm only mounting my 8x10s, everything smaller gets the holders.

[Allen in Montreal]

All of the scanning fluids I've tried leave a residue: Kami, Prazio, Lumina...

I have this too, even more so with Pyro processed negs.
Which makes me wonder, what are we doing wrong?

I use to sent negs out to be scanned and they did not come back with any traces of WMF residue.
Did they soak the negs in a Pec 12 bath as opposed to just wiping them down?