Cotton Gloves For Negative Handling, What do you use?

[jayabbas]

Minilab supply store(minilab.com) Cotton -- about 5.00, nylon -- about 8.50 per dozen and they have other goodies for your enjoyment.

[John Berry]

wash your hands in liquid joy dish soap. Mechanics have done this for years to strip off oil from hands.

[BetterSense]

Gloves for handling negatives? Lol. That's for museum conservators. I just try to get my hands fairly dry first.

[akfreak]

Well when I dev my 120 negs, I let them dry and sleeve them in the proper acid free plastic jacket that I have 300 yard rolls of. Same for all the other roll films. When I make prints with mt enlarger, it is easy. I just unfold the lip on the sleeve and hold the neg by the edges and place the strip in the metal mask, blow it off (it is secure in the mask) lock the mask into the holder of my Dever 504 all good in the world. It's so very simple.

Now that I am learning to scan, I am scanning on a glass to and it is difficult to avoid touching the negatives when pick them up or place them on the flatbed of the scanner. Ir touch the glass of the scanner top. I sense the mocking tone, it is ok, I just want to do the best I can during the final stages of conversion to digital file.

I saw a few videos where people use lint free cotton gloves to handle film, so I thought I would pose this question. I am not trying to work in a museum. I just want to avoid more post-work.

I think I have a good Idea of what you guys are using, thanks for the info. best wishes to all, AKf

[John Powers]

Gloves for handling negatives? Lol. That's for museum conservators. I just try to get my hands fairly dry first.

Years ago before computer scanning I sold commercial microfilm equipment and services for Bell & Howell, competing with Kodak and service bureaus. All the lab techs used cotton gloves to keep finger prints and dust off the film. Museum conservators and Lab techs do it for good reasons and laughed out loud at amateurs who don’t.

John

[Howard Tanger]

Years ago before computer scanning I sold commercial microfilm equipment and services for Bell & Howell, competing with Kodak and service bureaus. All the lab techs used cotton gloves to keep finger prints and dust off the film. Museum conservators and Lab techs do it for good reasons and laughed out loud at amateurs who don’t.

John

Bravo! Right on. Howard Tanger

[Drew Wiley]

Cotton is linty, barbaric on film. OK for handling mounted prints. I'd suggest dacron
gloves from a cleanroom supplier.

[lordvader]

I use powerder free latex gloves.
Boxes of 100, no need to worry about lint, or the gloves collecting lint/dust while in the wash either, and can still feel my way around a changing bag.

[DanK]

wash your hands in liquid joy dish soap. Mechanics have done this for years to strip off oil from hands.

I, too, am a big believer in dish soap (ajax), but also handle negatives and prints by the extreme outer edge...and avoid touching the image area of both...

(I also rewash negatives pretty often - depending on time in the 'open')

Latex while handling any wet print beyond a work or test print...and during toning...

And, I prefer cotton gloves or simply (usually) a thin cotton rag while dry mounting...or waxing...

My $0.02...

Cheers,
Dan