[LargeFormat] Removing black spots from prints
Jim Hemenway
largeformat@f32.net
Wed Oct 15 17:56:37 2003
Don:
I don't make wet prints anymore. I scan the film and use Photoshop to
fix any spots before printing on a 2200.
Not helpful to you I guess, so in your case I would either use a super
soft graphite pencil to spot on the emulsion side of your film, a 4B or
even a 6B if you can find one. One spots by tapping the pencil to leave
lots of little dots. Use any eye loupe or some extra strong reading
glasses, (about $20 for 3 at Costco). If the results are not what is
desired then erase and do it again.
Or, use the finest watercolor brush that you can find and some variously
diluted little batches of black ink on the print... spot the same way as
above, it takes practise. I haven't done it in such a long time that I
can't tell you what kind of ink to use on RC paper but I used to use
india ink on the old Kodak fibre papers.
For what it may be worth, I use canned air when I load my 11x14 film
holders. A spray on both sides of the holder with the darkslides
withdrawn and then once more after I've slid in the film but before
closing the dark slides.
Where is the dust coming from... oil heat or a wood stove? Can you
control it? How often do you vacuum your darkroom and/or sheet film
loading area?
Jim, "Not Mister Clean himself" Hemenway
Wilkes, Don MSER:EX wrote:
> The bane of LF has come to bite me in the posterior: dust. Close inspection
> reveals that a couple of small dust particles must have been clinging to the
> surface of the 4x5 sheet when I exposed it, resulting in black spots on the
> print. Naturally, according to the rules of large format, these appear in a
> large, smooth area of uniform sky...
>
> Does anyone have experience in dealing with this sort of problem? I don't
> want to retouch the neg itself -- it's fairly important to me -- so I'm
> thinking the route to follow will likely be bleaching and (probably)
> subsequent spotting. At the moment, I'm using Ilford MG RC, and I have
> little idea how it reacts to bleaching (nor spotting, for that matter --
> it's never been my forte). If it comes to it, I'd consider switching over
> to fiber-based paper, I guess, but hope that isn't necessary.
>
> Digital workflow would solve it, but it's not an option, both for monetary
> and personal preference reasons.
>
> One thing that's worrying me is the first of the batch that I loaded for the
> Yosemite trip...I haven't souped the others yet, as I wanted to ensure
> everything was tickety-boo with my processing first. Also, I've been both
> unusually busy and not feeling all that terrific lately. Don't want to rush
> nor fumble what may be the only negs I have of that perhaps
> once-in-a-lifetime trip.
>
> God, I hate dust...
>
> \donw in Victoria, B.C.