Etching and Spotting...UGH

[Kimberly Anderson]

Dealing with some dusty negatives. What a pain. Over two hours of etching for some of these prints.

When you guys get negs that are REALLY bad, does anyone scan them, retouch them then have new negatives made?

[cyrus]

Yeah I have a stack of negs that have issues of various sorts that I hope to scan and then contact print, but you can't use digital negatives in an enlarger because the dots become visible at normal magnification.

If you want to do it "old school" you make a print, retouch on the print, then re-photograph the print to get a new neg. Of course there is loss of resolution

[Bill Burk]

It is frustrating. When I get a dusty neg, I spot the clear spots directly on the neg. Then on the print I spot the white spots I created along with the other white spots, using Spotone.

[Drew Wiley]

Nothing converts one to loading film clean more than a good miserable spotting session.
Scanning and PS might simply the task, but it's still a relatively monotonous chore.

[Bill Burk]

Nothing converts one to loading film clean more than a good miserable spotting session.

You said it, man!

Spent an hour with vacuum cleaner and Grafmatics last weekend... Little buggers of dust landed as fast as I could pick them off.

Statistically, I told myself, the dust on the septum will stay there "under" the film.

[beemermark]

I was never any good at spotting negatives. Now that we have digital I scan them and fix them with software.

[mdm]

If you wet mount them, even on a v700 with a betterscanning holder, lots of problems will go away. provided they arent 35mm that is. Then if you like you could print up a digital negative fro contact printing.

[patrickjames]

I think it is better to retouch the neg then you are left with a white spot which is far easier to deal with than a black spot. I always screw up the etching and ruin the print. I use a Sakura Pigma Micron 01 super fine pen for this. Works pretty well. I also do it on the side opposite the emulsion fyi.

If anyone has a better way to do this I am all ears.

[dap]

Instead of spotting the negative with dye I've had reasonably good luck roughing up the backside of the negative with a needle to diffuse the light that shines through the white spots. You need a vibrating retouching machine for this but it is a handy little trick. (BTW - nice late model adams retouching machines have been offered for silly low prices on ebay as of late - might be worth getting one and giving it a try).

[Bill Burk]

Instead of spotting the negative with dye I've had reasonably good luck roughing up the backside of the negative with a needle to diffuse the light that shines through the white spots. You need a vibrating retouching machine for this but it is a handy little trick. (BTW - nice late model adams retouching machines have been offered for silly low prices on ebay as of late - might be worth getting one and giving it a try).

Do you use a condenser enlarger? I've found the procedure completely ineffective with a diffuser.

[dap]

I was using a condenser enlarger at the time. I got ok results, not fantastic, but it was better than leaving them un-etched. Good to know that it doesn't work with a diffusion enlarger...sounds like dyes might be the best universal answer.

[Bill Burk]

I was using a condenser enlarger at the time. I got ok results, not fantastic, but it was better than leaving them un-etched. Good to know that it doesn't work with a diffusion enlarger...sounds like dyes might be the best universal answer.

I think the studios used to use a lot of condenser enlargers... That's probably where the pin scratch technique was most useful...

I wish there was something like a 10x0 Rapidograph.