Cleaning OLD B&W Negatives: Thanks to my visit today with my sister, I have acquired a number of old B&W negatives. Before scanning them on my V600, they must be "cleaned." This is a...

Jack B Loc: Mount Pleasant, SC

Thanks to my visit today with my sister, I have acquired a number of old B&W negatives. Before scanning them on my V600, they must be "cleaned." This is a request for references on how to do this. If you have a technique you have successfully used and may share it, please share it with me. Thank you in advance for you assistance.

Quixdraw Loc: x

Canned air, Staticmaster brush, microfiber cloth, PCE, etc.

https://kodakdigitizing.com/blogs/news/how-do-you-clean-your-negatives

PixelStan77 Loc: Vermont/Chicago

Jack B wrote:

Thanks to my visit today with my sister, I have acquired a number of old B&W negatives. Before scanning them on my V600, they must be "cleaned." This is a request for references on how to do this. If you have a technique you have successfully used and may share it, please share it with me. Thank you in advance for you assistance.

Jack, The question is brushing them with a camels hair brush or compressed air take care of it?
Most aggressive is washing the negative in Kodaks photoflo.

Bunko.T Loc: Western Australia.

Jack B wrote:

Thanks to my visit today with my sister, I have acquired a number of old B&W negatives. Before scanning them on my V600, they must be "cleaned." This is a request for references on how to do this. If you have a technique you have successfully used and may share it, please share it with me. Thank you in advance for you assistance.

I scanned hundreds of them & edited them in my PC. Wouldn’t take the risk of damage to the image. Mine were historically significant. As positive images it’s much easier to edit them clean, keep copies for safety.

bw79st Loc: New York City

A Rocket air blower and an anti-static brush. I've read that you should never use canned air on negatives. For stains, fingerprints, etc I use Pec-12 on the glossy side, never on the emulsion side. All these are available from Amazon.

Schoee Loc: Europe

bw79st wrote:

A Rocket air blower and an anti-static brush. I've read that you should never use canned air on negatives. For stains, fingerprints, etc I use Pec-12 on the glossy side, never on the emulsion side. All these are available from Amazon.

PEC-12 is great and is designed to be used on the emulsion side. I have used it both sides of slides.

bw79st Loc: New York City

Schoee wrote:

PEC-12 is great and is designed to be used on the emulsion side. I have used it both sides of slides.

Thanks! That's good to know.

CPR Loc: Nature Coast of Florida

I'm a chicken so only blow off and lightly brush off any dust and then fix anything else in Photoshop. I have one 4X5 negative from a 1957 Pulitzer prize shot that is a mess but PS fixed the scan OK.

jimmol

The problem is that dust gets embedded in the emulsion. At that point there is no way to blow it off. The best thing is to remove the dust specks in post-processing. A program I have used is the Polaroid Dust and Scratch Remover. This was written a long time ago and works as a 32-bit plugin. Other editors may be able to do the same thing.

pshane

I worked in Printing/Graphic Arts in the 70's, and we used a product called 'Kodak Film Clean' on our negatives.

It was specifically for film negatives, evaporated immediately, and did a great job. -
(I don't know if it's even around anymore, but if so that's your 'Solution'!)

MAXD

If you have darkroom skills from the past you can rewash the negs and give a final rinse in distilled water before hanging to dry.

Steved3604

Air, brush first. Usually base side. Emulsion at your own risk. Pec 12 is definitely a good suggestion and last is Denatured Alcohol on lint free soft cloth with a soft touch. (Not Isopropyl Alcohol). Absolutely the last resort is re-wash. Do all of these and other suggestions AFTER having done a protection scan or two of the original neg/slide at high res with Digital Ice. Always best to test one or two of the least important negs first. Murphy's Law applies here.

MAXD

I'm not sure why you would be fearful of rewashing a B&W negative if it needed it. If you have experience in the darkroom you've washed hundreds of them when they were first processed to no harm.

Steved3604

MAXD wrote:

I'm not sure why you would be fearful of rewashing a B&W negative if it needed it. If you have experience in the darkroom you've washed hundreds of them when they were first processed to no harm.

Most B&W negatives will handle a rewash without issues. Probably Kodak and other name brands will be OK. I have attempted to rewash some WWII film from Japan that curled up into a long tube. Also, some 1930s movie film did not like to get wet again. Most likely any current films will not have an issue getting wet (again). My guess is that the film base on the more than 70 year old material I worked with was not the same as current Kodak material. With the issues I had I always (now) test the material to see if getting wet again is OK. Just a caution.

MAXD

Yes, movie film from the 30's would probably be celluloid base, no telling how it would react never mind figuring out how to dry it. When cine film labs duplicate old film they usually use a wet film gate,(actually oil), covers a multitude of sins. I've processed still film found in an old kodak folding camera from that era and it handled just like modern film.