Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/05/25
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]William: The dust and scratches thing is driving me a little nuts. I just printed that picture yesterday on Ilford MG IV. It took 15 minutes to figure out the right exposure. At grade 3 you get 7 seconds, and detail in the hair - so a point. And no dust or scratches (I use an enlarger with AN glass, which probably helps). On Luminos Charcoal R you do lose the lower hair and clothing detail, but you can see still the hair very clearly at the top of her head. I like the Luminos paper better for its old-school texture and tones. Took 10 minutes to recompute the exposure and determine the paper development time. Had I read the Neutol NE bottle, and had I not started with some edge-fogged paper, I probably wouldn't have even taken that long (Neutol is a 90 sec developer). Again, no dust at 10x. BUT... on a negative scanner, I was poking around for a lot longer (like an hour), didn't get quote the exposure I wanted, and managed to pick up a lot of negative flaws (like horizontal scratches). Apparently, the Kodak scanner has a tiny bit too much DOF, even when focused, and picks up everything (it also has a very cold light source that seems to accentuate this). This is a bit irritating, since the scanner will pick up these flaws at a lot smaller enlargement and through the magic of resampling, preserve them even when the onscreen picture is snapped down to 500 pixels high. Unfortunately, it seems that the only choices are Digital ICE (which degrades in much the same way that "Dust and Scratches" does and infrared correction, which won't work with b/w film. These horizontal scratches dog me with new film, reloaded film, home processing, commercial processing, Leica, Nikon and Konica. The only film that seems to be resistant is Supra, which is not very useful for b/w. So maybe just printing them is easier.... Regards Dante > I agree with the graphic quality. Great shot - the imaginative way you > posed Ciara takes what would have been a standard portrait a step higher. > > But dust and scratches - ugh ! > > Regards > > William > > > > > > > > -- > To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html - ------------ Dante Stella http://www.dantestella.com - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html