Sheet film developing and contact printing--observations

[Mattk]

Well I recently fired up the 8x10 trying to get more serious about printing and making images again after what seems to be months of nothing but neg scans. I had trouble in the past with tray development. No matter how hard I tried I seemed to be getting scratches whenever I developed more than one sheet at a time. Turns out its rather important to have the emulsion side down! Doh!
Once I changed the technique I was able to develop six sheets at a time with no scratches!
Now if I could just get rid of the dust when contact printing. Any advice on that? I am wiping the neg with a dust removal cloth but it seems that somewhere when stacking up the paper and lowering the glass I get dust.

[Mark Woods]

Go rent a nitrogen tank and buy a nozzle and regulator. Blow off the negs. Also good for loading film holders.

[D. Bryant]

Well I recently fired up the 8x10 trying to get more serious about printing and making images again after what seems to be months of nothing but neg scans. I had trouble in the past with tray development. No matter how hard I tried I seemed to be getting scratches whenever I developed more than one sheet at a time. Turns out its rather important to have the emulsion side down! Doh!
Once I changed the technique I was able to develop six sheets at a time with no scratches!
Now if I could just get rid of the dust when contact printing. Any advice on that? I am wiping the neg with a dust removal cloth but it seems that somewhere when stacking up the paper and lowering the glass I get dust.

Clean your enlarger, humidify the air in your darkroom prior to printing. Use dry Swiffers to clean your negatives.

Don Bryant

[PViapiano]

Use a large anti-static brush on negs, and a good quality micro-fiber cloth on the glass.

I do this when contact printing my pt/pd negs as well as my glass carriers for enlarging. Now, I don't normally use a glass carrier, but recently I used two small sheets of glass with a 2 1/4 neg that a large sky area, and there was no dust, no spotting needed.