after you remove the wet neg from scanner, what's your drying method?

[ericantonio]

I know I made that question sort of "in the middle of a longer question". So after I wet/scan/curse out my workflow, get gamsol on my pj's and then finish, I remove the wet neg, what's your process after that?

I usually try to find a beer can I haven't thrown out yet, and stand the neg it on its side. Then wipe down the 30' area where I got dang gamsol over, and then do the next one.

I'm sure you guys are much better than I am at doing this, what's your usual way of cleaning up the neg? How do you dry it? Was thinking of using my sutures and hang it on the edge somehow somewhere.

[Peter De Smidt]

Any contact with your film can degrade it through abrasion. Gamosol, if it's like other scanning fluids, will leave a small amount of residue. Place a drop on a clean sheet of glass and let it evaporate for a few days. There will likely be residue left. That was the case when I tried that test with Kami scanning fluid. The main question is what to do. If you're going to optically print the negative again, then you should use a film cleaner made for removing scanning fluid, such as Kami film cleaner. So, wet mount film. Scan. Let evaporate for a bit, then carefully use film cleaner for a quick wipe. Hang to dry, preferably for a couple of hours. The downsides are the cost and the possibility of scratching your film. If you never plan to print optically, then you can try just letting the film hang to dry after scanning, skipping the film cleaner. This might leave some residue, but if you have to scan again, it's likely that the scanning fluid will dissolve it.

[ericantonio]

This is excellent tip! I actually have some of that PEC film cleaning stuff on my amazon list. Maybe time to hit order. But I'll search around for Kami film cleaner and do some research. Thank you!

[Peter De Smidt]

PEC is fine, too.

[ericantonio]

NIce, thank you Peter. I never really looked at the neg after drying.

[Alan9940]

I use Kami fluid and following a scan I carefully lift the film by a corner and wave gently in the air to evaporate excess fluid as quickly as possible. But, as others have said Kami can leave a bit of residue. I, too, use PEC-12 for cleaning the film. Been wet scanning for over 20 years and haven't ruined a negative...knock wood.

[SergeyT]

That residue is likely the anti-static that is usually present in both Kami mounting and fluid AND film cleaner.
The reason why one would want to wipe out the residue left after mounting fluid evaporates is that such residue may contain glue from Kami or any other mounting tape that was used to tape the film and mylar to the glass. If no tape was used then I would not bother with using film cleaner after scanning.

[Alan Klein]

Has anyone checked the difference in quality, wet vs dry, on an Epson V850?

[SergeyT]

Depends on what you mean by quality, Alan.
On a high end flatbed the difference is in noticeable smoothness in wet mounted scans vs dry. In theory (hard to prove), the tone reproduction should improve due to physics of the light transmittance (less reflective surfaces in the path between the light source and the sensor)
The major factor for me is - wet mounting is the only way to guarantee film flatness and precision with mounting.

[Alan9940]

The major factor for me is - wet mounting is the only way to guarantee film flatness and precision with mounting.

Same here, especially with 8x10 film.

[ericantonio]

I have YET to do 8x10 wet mount. I was told to tape where the glass meets the edges. I now have a very nice printer (epson sc p-700) and really want to get some nice prints. Previously, I just do a quick scan on the glass, and I do see Newton rings. But scaled down to 800 wide photo for web, it was just fine.

I want one of those plastic bottles with the bent top to squirt the fluid. Right now, I'm using a squeezy bottle like the one you use in the kitchens for ketchup.

[Alan9940]

Yep, you don't want mounting fluid to get under the bed glass and/or into the internals of the scanner. I carefully tape around the edges of the glass and long ago I figured out exactly how much fluid to use to provide good coverage of the film, but not be excessive such that any large quantity seeps out from the edges of the mylar overlay when I go to remove any bubbles.

[Alan Klein]

Depends on what you mean by quality, Alan.
On a high end flatbed the difference is in noticeable smoothness in wet mounted scans vs dry. In theory (hard to prove), the tone reproduction should improve due to physics of the light transmittance (less reflective surfaces in the path between the light source and the sensor)
The major factor for me is - wet mounting is the only way to guarantee film flatness and precision with mounting.

The V850 film holders for 4x5, 35mm, and 120, hold the film flat against built-in glass in the holders. OF course, for 8x10 where the glass platen is used to scan, that's not the case. So wet mounting might be different for 8x10.

[Peter De Smidt]

Wet-mounting does tend to keep the negative flat, but mounting on a flat plate is different then mounting around a drum. With drum mounting, the cover sheet is forcing the negative to the drum. On a flat surface, the cover sheet is mostly tightening like a drum skin, i.e. the pull is from the sides. It's not down. This can lead to the film not really being flat.

If interested, one should do a test. With some systems, the difference can be large, but with others not-so-much. For me, the wet-mounting led to less granularity in the depiction of photographic grain, (Not silver grains!). In my case, the slight improvements didn't justify the hassle, especially as I don't print large enough from LF to see any grain. For smaller formats, this becomes more important, and they are often enlarged more.

I just looked at maybe 75 prints from 8x10, most of them from Provia. (These were made by an outstanding 8x10 photographer...not me!) The prints were small, all less than 20" on the long side. They looked great! Most were dry scanned on an Epson. Some were drum scanned. At those print sizes, I couldn't tell a difference.

[SergeyT]

>> On a flat surface, the cover sheet is mostly tightening like a drum skin, i.e. the pull is from the sides. It's not down
Atmospheric pressure and vacuum between surfaces of film , glass and mylar is what keeps the film flat. One of the reasons to get rid of bubbles .
Attempts to forcefully pull mylar to the sides during wet mounting on scanners glass almost always causes Newton rings (also looks like ultra fine banding in the skyes) as there is no way to pull the mylar evenly along the entire edge.
I never noticed such effects with the Eversmart Jazz , but definitely had it with both Pro and IQSmart. Once I stopped pulling the mylar and switched to a gentle rolling with a heavy roller - the scans are perfect .

[Peter De Smidt]

As long as the film lays flat......I've had sheet film that wouldn't wet-mount successfully on a flatbed. The edges would pop up. No amount of rolling fixed it.

[SergeyT]

>> I've had sheet film that wouldn't wet-mount successfully on a flatbed.
Every rule has exceptions
Usually I am having hard time lifting film off the glass after mylar is removed :)

[Peter De Smidt]

Yep! Usually, there wasn't a problem.

[Alan Klein]

Here is a comparison between Epson V850 dry scan of Tmax 100 with its 4x5 film holder against a Howtek 8000 drum scan. They compare favorably. Sorry, I don't have an Epson wet scan of it.

https://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?158728-Howtek-8000-Drum-vs-Epson-V850-flatbed-scanners&highlight=howtek