Hi everyone, a friend who is shooting film, Emailed me right now asking how can she clean her chrome and negative films, for scanning. I don't know what kind of dirt she's talking about, so I'm assuming it's just a normal pre-scanning cleaning. Since this topic is also interesting for me, as I'm not familiar with film, I though of asking here.

Anyone has any special way to clean the film for preparing for a scan? Any special emulsion that can be used? Just a normal dry soft cloth? Just blow dry air?

I'm waiting for the answers.

Thanks in advance,

Jessica

One way is to soak the film in H20 and a wetting agent, the carefully drying.

There's a good film cleaner called Peck 12.

Best of all, but most work is oil/gel mounting the film on the scanner. That produces much better quality scans, eliminates scratches and a lot of dirt. Not all film scanners will support this mode of operation.

A good resource for this (although the web-site is a bit confusing) is ScanScience. The outfit provides the means to wet-scan on a lot of scanners, including those that don't ordinarily support it. I use a Nikon 9000 for 35mm and 60mm, and the ScanScience stuff works very well, and as Andrew says, the scans are superior.

I was taught by the guys at ICG (Drum scanner manufacturers outside Bristol UK) to use lighter fluid to clean scanning gel / mounting fluid from negs. Yes, plain old inexpensive liquid lighter fluid and lint free wipes from your neighborhood camera store. I was a bit hesitant at 1st when I saw it demo'd but tried it and was very pleased with the results. It leaves your neg streak free and dries quickly too.

I sometimes need to clean film for scanning with a Hasselblad x5 or Nikon 5000. I've heard that PEC-12 is on the strong side and that Anti-Stat Film Cleaner from Edwal is a milder cleaner. For 35mm slides and negatives, I use one end of a cotton q-tip with enough solution to wet the frame and wipe gently. I then dry the frame with the other end of the q-tip.

Sometimes a cotton fiber or two will remain on the frame, but a blast of air or camel hair brush will remove it easily. I suppose you could use some kind of lint free photo wipes like PEC-PADS, however a q-tip is very easy to control and you can really see what you're doing.

This technique was explained to me by a film guy who sold both products and it seems like a good procedure to me. This will remove any oil or stubborn dirt from the film, so the next time only a brush and air is needed. -R

If you are wet mounting, I'm not sure what the best procedure is.

PEC-12 is the only archival film cleaner on the market. According to the manufacturer, it will actually remove residual chemistry not washed out in normal processing.

There are a lot of "tricks" the old time drum scanners used to clean film including the film stuck in the turpentine soaked phonebook pages to suck out the Johnson's Baby Oil they used to mount with. None of that is archival and it can all damage your film, but service bureaus were not concerned with what happened to your film after they were through with it.

Thankfully today we have PEC-12 and Kami fluid.

This Pec 12 you speak of, any uk suppliers? it sounds like it might fix a problem I've had with a couple of rolls that I rushed.

For negs in good condition, canned air seems the easiest method - only dust to worry about.

I shoot 90% chromes and I don't do anything special other than give it a good shot with compressed air. No need for the liquid dunking or anything. Assuming these are properly stored and have the 'usual' amount of dust.

I would also send you over to APUG normally, but there would be a couple zealots there that would cry "digital" and cause mayhem in your thread. Too bad really.

Regards, Art.

Sometimes a cotton fiber or two will remain on the frame, but a blast of air or camel hair brush will remove it easily. I suppose you could use some kind of lint free photo wipes like PEC-PADS, however a q-tip is very easy to control and you can really see what you're doing.

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I use PEC-12 for really bad dirt problems.

For simple dust, I find a quick blast with canned air and few wipes with a Sensor Brush from Visible Dust works best.