[Leica] OT: Best Way to Remove Dust and Scratches NOT USING Photoshop?

[red735i at earthlink.net (Frank Filippone)]

There have been several  approaches to dust removal on negatives::::

1) Some form of brush.. sometimes camel hair, horse hair, badger hair, skunk
hair, cat hair, human hair.  But Hair.  It works.... somewhat.  Works
because of the charge buildup on the hairs.  Also it physically moves the
dust away.

2) Hi Tech Brush.... Not hair, but some synthetic product....carbon fiber is
the most recent....  Advantage is higher ability to make and take a charge.
Kostiner made some and they work remarkably well.  Kostiner has been out of
business for at least 5 years.... Hard to find.

3) Brush with anti nuclear, radioactive or otherwise malevolent source of
charge.  Obvious problems.... Static Master Brushes....I have several and
they work pretty well.

4) Charge from electrical source... Brushes sold by Zone VI "in the old
days".  They plug into the wall and charge the brush.  This one does work
well, but it costs a small fortune ( $200 USED) and is hard to come by since
they were discontinued maybe 15 years ago....

5) Charge sources form other products.... Zero Stat... used a crystal cell
that was poked and sent out a charge.  This works pretty well too.

6) Air blowing.. from human breath to canned air.

7) Air + Charge creator.. used in the industrial areas fro elimination of
static charge buildup ( typically into he semiconductor industry 20 years
ago)

My preferred way is to keep the negatives clean and to use first the Zero
Stat, then the Kostiner Brush and finally a blast of canned air.  If that
does not work, then the Zone VI brush plus the canned air.

Frank Filippone
red735i@earthlink.net