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

**ericantonio** · 27-Sep-2022, 09:59

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** · 27-Sep-2022, 11:16

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** · 27-Sep-2022, 12:21

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** · 27-Sep-2022, 12:48

PEC is fine, too.

**ericantonio** · 27-Sep-2022, 15:31

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

**Alan9940** · 27-Sep-2022, 20:51

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** · 27-Sep-2022, 21:09

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** · 28-Sep-2022, 07:00

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

**SergeyT** · 28-Sep-2022, 09:08

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.