[filmscanners] Re: Cleaning slides and negs prior to scanning

["Mike Kersenbrock" <michaelk@aracnet.com>]

Mario Teixeira wrote:
> "Thomas Maugham" <TMaugham@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Can anyone suggest a good way to clean slides and negs prior to scanning?  I
> clean the best I can with a soft brush and light puffs of air but still wind
> up with dust on my scans.  I verified that the dust is not in my scanner.
> I'd like to get as much off the originals as possible as I don't like to use
> dust spotting tools as I feel that they degrade the image.


Although in my current house where dust levels are a great deal lower
than in my previous house (probably partly due to now having an electronic
house filter of the Honeywell variety), I still need to remove a little
dust.

What works wonderfully is something that's been around for a half century
or so (at least).  It's a "Staticmaster" brush.  Comes in several sizes
with soft bristles, but its trick is a strip of polonium near the base
of the bristles.  It radiates alpha particles out a couple inches and
eliminates static -- which is why it's so effective at brushing off dust.
The polonium strip "module" needs to be replaced periodically, its half-life
is pretty quick (but is effective for quite a few half-lives).  Not something
to buy an old one of (other than for the brush, which is, a good one).

Mike K.






----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsubscribe by mail to listserver@halftone.co.uk, with 'unsubscribe 
filmscanners'
or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or 
body