KAMI wet mount scanner kits

Hello! It would appear that the best liquid is that which would have the same index of refraction as the film base, wash off the film with no residue, and have no fire hazard or physical effects on teh user. Tough order.
The liquid will decrease the light dispersion from a scratch on both the emulsion and non-emulsion side. However, the liquid won't affect any loss of silver density, should the scratch be on the emulsion side. Similarly, the liquid will decrease the light dispersion caused by irregular grain (that is, larger grain of faster films).
Air has an index of refraction of 1.0. I couldn't find the index of refraction of the film base, but I presume it is close to glycerin and fused silica, about 1.46.
Water has an index of 1.33, vewgetable oil of 1.47, and 80% sugar solution of 1.49.
From this, even plain water should yield a significant improvement if a person feels that wet mounting is advantageous. High quality cooking oil would work, except it would be difficult to clean off the film.
Probably the best liquid would be 80% sugar water - non-toxic and non-flammable, and washes off easily. I am not aware of any studies about the effects of sugar water on developed film, but my gut feeling is that it would be minimal. Best regards.

Mike

Jim,
I use a similar approach, using a piece of translucent white styrene (relatively thin, around .030 thick). as long as I make sure that the calibration window is covered as well, the scans come out every bit as good as the ones I (used to) send out. Like you, I scan B&W, though I've tried a few color negs and had excellent results also.

If someone is interested in this approach, I have several pieces I can send out, for the cost of the postage.
erie

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Originally Posted by jim kitchen

Dear Sandy,

No problemo...

I purchased this glass: http://www.ilovemuseumglass.com/aboutmuseumglass.asp from a local framing shop. I also incorporate this specific glass within my framed images for the galleries, and glass reflections totally disappear. I think it this is an outstanding product, but painfully expensive. I should also indicate that I am trying a piece of acrylic, where I can not and do not have the exact part number presently, as a replacement for the museum glass. I found acrylic to be just a bit tougher than glass...

The idea came to me when I visited this site: http://www.scanhancer.com/ I desired an alternative to glass, while covering the negative for safety reasons, and resulting from the earlier mentioned banding issues I encountered. Museum Glass is fantastic, but acrylic provides a superb diffused light source for the scanned negative. I will not go back to glass. The owner of this website was very helpful, but he would not reveal the source of the material, for obvious reasons. Erik mentioned he would cut me a piece of his source material to the required dimensions, for a minimal price, so I could experiment with it, but we did not finish our discussion. Erik was quite considerate and very helpful...

As an experiment, I sought out a local acrylic supplier, and I tried two types of acrylic, where one is brilliantly white and manufactured for light tables, the other duller and grey. The duller grey acrylic performs the best, because it seems to allow more diffused light to reach the negative, compared to the denser white acrylic. The shadow areas in my negatives are wonderfully recognized because I believe more diffused light reaches the sensors through the scanned negative. I recommend this acrylic approach to anyone. A scanned negative through a diffused light source is rather a joy to behold, and my results are too similar to Erik's web page to dismiss. I do not scan colour negatives or transparencies, so I do not know whether this material might affect the resultant image with a possible colour shift. I hope that wet mounting will improve this effort too. I will try to identify the source and part number of the acrylic to pass the information along. The acrylic is not manufactured to optical standards, but then again, I always drum scan my best negatives, so I did not consider any optical quality issues within the acrylic. Once I find the information I will post the manufacturer, and the possible part number. I plan to marry Ernst Dinkla's approach and the use of acrylic, to see whether the results are worth the effort. I think they will.

jim k

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Dear Group,

Just a follow-up note to those that might be interested, regarding my experimentation while using an acrylic diffuser and Sandy's recommended use of Baby Oil, during a scanning exercise on my Epson 750...

I found the source of the acrylic, and thank you Jay Wenner:

For the Grey acrylic: W2447 <==== the one I used...
For the White acrylic: W7328 <==== too dense...

The source is here: http://www.plexiglas.com/acrylicshee...ntenance/white

I puchased a six inch acrylic roller, made by Testrite Instrument Company, Model 46LB Acrylic Brayer at an artist supply shop. I also purchased a sheet of Mylar, frosted one side, and cut the Mylar into 12"X12" squares. The acrylic is cut to size, where the acrylic rests on top of the scanner's glass bed, supported by Epson's plastic film guide. The acrylic butts up against the bottom edge of the scanner's glass bed, and the acrylic does not cover the calibration opening. The plastic film guide acts as a spacer between the negative and the scanner's glass bed.

My process:

1. I squared and I centered the negative onto the acrylic;

2. I taped one edge of an 8X10 negative to the acylic, with black artist tape, where a cloth material is embedded in the tape, acting as a hinge, and it is very sticky;

3. I liberally poured Baby Oil onto the acrylic, and I let the negative fall into the Baby Oil, with the emulsion side of the negative coming into contact with the Baby Oil;

4. I placed the Mylar on top of the negative to protect the negative while I used the roller to squeeze the negative into the Baby Oil;

5. I tried to remove every last trapped bubble in the Baby oil, but found it difficult;

6. I taped the remaining edges of the negative onto the acrylic;

7. I removed the Mylar and cleaned the surface of the negative with tissue;

8. I placed the acrylic onto the Epson Film Guide, with the non-emulsion side of the negative facing the scanning bed glass, effectively hanging the negative above the scanning glass;

9. I scanned the negative with the Monaco iT8 calibrated scanner, using 48bit RGB and 3000ppi, resulting in a 3.63gb scan;

10. I use this method to bring the RGB file to grey scale: http://weblog.slower.net/archives/3 where the negative is reduced to 1.2gb.

My results are quite phenomenal, considering the mess the Baby Oil makes. I will, however, return to the artist supply store to look for a better roller, to squeeze the negative against the oil and the acrylic. The manufacturer of the Brayer Roller, offers different sizes, and with different materials, such as a rubber. I will try another roller to see whether there is an improvement in removing the last remaining air bubbles, trapped in the baby oil. I did not try to scan the negative at different heights above the scanner's glass bed, because my negative is quite sharp as it is. Actually, it is very sharp. I will continue to test this method on a few more negatives that seem to be a problem lately, because for some unknown reason my latest supply TMY has a shiny appearance on the emulsion side of the negative, compared to the previous boxes of film. This seemingly shiny emulsion is the cause of the annoying newton rings, which I did not have earlier. Whether you have the patience or not, and don't mind smelling like a kid again, you should try this method to see whether it works for you...

Anyway, good bye newton rings, hello contrast, hello shadow detail, and hello sharpness...

jim k

Sorry to come in late. A few additional points. One Kami is not the only game in town. Prazio also makes a entire range of mounting products. I use both theirs and Kami depending on the job. For most scanning jobs a very light liquid, like Prazio's spray-on 'Anti Newton Ring' fluid will do the job; btw this stuff does not evaporate quite as fast as Kami giving you a bit more leisure to get the scan setup. Emember you will need to clean the film afterwards.

Finally, Sandy is right on with blue painters tape. No reason to use anything else.

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Originally Posted by PMahoney

Any recommendations as to where I can purchase (online) a wet mount kit for an Epson 4990?
Peter

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You don't need one. All you need is some Kami fluid, some acetate overlay film and some tape. And a squeege or brayer (roller). If fact, it has been shown that the sharpness of scanning without the extra devices is far superior.

Half of the Kami fluid being sold these days is being used on flatbeds. If you like, contact me offline and I can help you acquire all this stuff...

Lenny

The various fluids for wet mounting must not disolve or be absorbed by the emulsion or base. Further, the processing methods some older color negative and transparency materials used a stabilizer as the last wet step before drying. I would be very cautious using water or oils to mount these materials. My brother, the chemist, suggested that the commercial fluids were one of the heavier alcohols and were unlikely to cause the problems mentioned above.

You guys might want to try using PEG instead of mineral oil. You should be able to wash this off later without any soap.

Another thing to try would be washing the mineral oil off with heptane, but only if you know how to handle dangerously flammable solvents.

Aaron -

>>You guys might want to try using PEG instead of mineral oil.<<

Can you please give us more details on "PEG?"

Thanks,
Doug
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www.BetterScanning.com

By PEG, I assume he means polyethylene glycol, which (as I remember) is very soluble and can be dissolved in water to a point of making almost gel-like liquids.

Jay

Any of the 'heavier' mounting fluids are real overkill unless you need to deal with sever scratch issues. For that matter wet mounting itself is often overkill (not always but often). Nothing wrong with the 'heavier' fluids just that they mean more cleanup time and effort.

One of the things not mentioned is cleaning in advance. I use compressed air (not the little consumer cans) on all my film before scanning to make sure all (or as much as humanly possible) particulate matter is gone. I realize few are going to use an industrial compressor hookup like I do but if you are using 'canned air' make sure there is no damaging propellant.