[Leica] Tiny white spots on my negs!

[jblack at ambio.net (John Black)]

>
> I got these many times, although I didn't notice them until the negs
> were scanned by a Nikon 5000ED. When enlarged traditionaly or when
> scanned in "scanning liquid" on a drum scanner, they tend to
> disappear. I could trace it back to a few batches that were
> developped together, but couldn't pinpoint the source. I haven't
> tried washing the negs again...
>

I used to struggle with spots and scratches on my freshly developed
negatives and came up with the following information:

1-  My spots went away altogether when I started making sure I had no small
tape pieces on the end of the roll where it is cut off the spool in the
dark. I used to just cut it off in the dark with scissors and had a small
bit of tape left on the film. This was with Tri-X and the tape remnant was
coming apart in the various washes and making particles.

2-  The scratches would show up obviously on scans from my LS2000 and would
have to be "healed" in PS, but, wonder of wonders, it never showed up on an
enlarger print.  The scratches were seen by the scanner but must have been
too small to show up on enlargement.

JB