[Leica] Retouching enlargements experience?

[Jayanand Govindaraj]

Luis,
My advice would be to digitize the negative, clean it up, convert it to a
digital negative and then do your darkroom prints.

Cheers
Jayanand

On Mon, Feb 18, 2019 at 8:45 AM Don Dory via LUG <lug at leica-users.org>
wrote:

> 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
>
> _______________________________________________
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