[Leica] Retouching enlargements experience?

[Don Dory]

Back in the day: start with distilled water filtered for all your mixing of
chemicals and rinsing negatives in photoflo.  Use a clean soft pad to
remove excess wetting agent or what I used at the end, denatured alcohol
leaving the film on the reels..  Then I had a custom built film dryer that
basically used a hairdryer sucking in air through a hepa filter and into a
metal tube that held the reels of film.  So, most of the time the film was
clean and straight into sleeves.

When enlarging blow the negatives off with an air compressor through a hepa
filter.  If you still have dust spots then, sigh, there is nothing but spot
tone inks and a really fine brush.  Become the artist and mix the colors
until you get the tone right, much easier typed than done.  I will say that
once you have standardized on a paper and developer you learn the mix and
it becomes a lot easier.  Wearing one of those binocular magnifiers you see
jewelers and watch repair techs use carefully put really tiny dots of ink
down in the dust spot building the density up with more dots.  Let it dry
between as the density changes as it dries.  This is a true art/craft and
it gets much easier the more you do it.  I have to say that I was doing a
lot of this for myself and others who gave up learning.

But, with a smile, spotting is so much easier using Adobe's tools.

All the best, and just like using an M, there is a learning curve in seeing
color in the B&W and a steady hand with the brush along with a whole lot of
patience.

On Sun, Feb 17, 2019 at 7:22 PM Lluis Ripoll via LUG <lug at leica-users.org>
wrote:

> Steve, mon ami
>
> I will share the answer with you if I find it…..
>
> Amitiés
> Lluis
>
>
> > El 18 febr 2019, a les 1:19, Stephen Barbour via LUG <
> lug at leica-users.org> va escriure:
> >
> > Well put, agree with all including your ending question.
> >
> > Sent from my iPhone, Steve
> >
> >> On Feb 17, 2019, at 4:12 PM, Lluis Ripoll via LUG <lug at leica-users.org>
> wrote:
> >>
> >> I’ve encountered sometimes when I enlarge a small dust like small hairs
> that ruin the enlargement. I clean it, I look to the negative with a
> magnifier 8X but sometimes I’ve removed the dust from one point to another
> point.
> >>
> >> To clean the nregative I’m using PEC PAD with the special tissues
> provided but sometimes a supplementary action on the enlargement would be
> necessary. I think it is very difficult do a good retouching and make a
> similar tone to the one of the print.
> >>
> >> Some experiences about cleaning better the negatives or applying
> retouching?
> >>
> >> Thank you!
> >> Lluis
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
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> >
> >
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>
>
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-- 
Don
don.dory at gmail.com