negative cleaner

Can anyone recommend something that will clean negatives of dus, drying marks etc and also wher i can get it from

Kodak and others recommend Isopropyl Alcohol, as high a concentration as you can get. You can find 91% rubbing alcohol in drug stores, and I have used it before. Also, go to a photo store or on line place and they have neg cleaning solutions made for film (use with cotton balls). A small bottle of either should last your life time, but water marks from drying may not come off.
You can search this forum for "Alcohol and Negatives" and find other threads and posts.

The only thing that will remove drying marks if they are hard water deposits is rewashing and you may need to soak them in stop bath to dissolve the mineral deposits first.

Try a soak/wash in distilled water for 10-15 minutes and then add a couple of drops of Photoflo in 16oz/500ml of distilled water.

Yes there are quite a few threads here on cleaning/rewashing negatives, it's just the internal search engine is not too good at finding the information.

make sure you get a good antistatic cloth, you can find them at good photo stores or order them online. they're essential for cleaning negatives before you scan or print, and they pick up tiny particles of dust that blow up to huge streaks on your prints.

Check out a product called PEC-12. Available from Light Impressions and probably other suppliers.

Hi Connie

I like to dust my Negs with an Anti-Static Brush, which I got from Silverprint - http://www.silverprint.co.uk/ProductByGroup.asp?PrGrp=1087&sort_dir=0-0-0&sort_column=7-8-0&Start=25

Alternatively - you could use an anti-static cloth but being impregnated with something they do leave a light deposit behind (which is the reason I don't use them)

Isopropyl Alcohol is good for cleaning most things without leaving a residue - just Google or EBay the name & loads of hits come up.

I prefer to use the Alcohol with a micro fibre cloth - as the cloths don't leave their own deposit (again from Silverprint - page 1 of the above link)

Cotton wool tends to have softeners included, so they feel soft & fluffy to the user

Drying marks might or might not come off - damp the cloth with Alcohol & use gentle circular rubbing motions. (Probably best to wear latex gloves or Marigolds to stop the Alcohol from de-greasing the skin on your fingers at the same time as you use it)

Of course - prevention of drying marks is better than cure - so buy some Wetting Agent (Silverprint yet again) and use very sparingly

Martin

I corresponded with Agfa a while ago about this. They recommended a dilute solution of sodium carbonate in distilled water. It worked beautifully.

andarc said:

I corresponded with Agfa a while ago about this. They recommended a dilute solution of sodium carbonate in distilled water. It worked beautifully.

Click to expand...

you wouldn't happen to have that info you could share, do you? I've just used up the rest of my 1st bottle of Pec-12(ouch, 13 bucks?!)

need a cheaper fix

thanks

-Dan

According to the msds for pec12 it is mostly methanol and another solvent. It is real expensive methanol, try a bottle of 98% isopropyl alcohol from the drug store, or maybe a gallon can of methanol from the local home depot etc.

Bob-D659 said:

According to the msds for pec12 it is mostly methanol and another solvent. ..

Click to expand...

The other solvent is N-Butyl Acetate, but the proportions are unknown.

Dan, you can buy sodium carbonate at Photographers' Formulary. I no longer have the information they gave me, but it was a very small amount of sodium carbonate in distilled water. I have guesstimated the concentration in the past, with no problems. Practice it on a non-critical negative first.

thanks martin - which one cloth and brush did you buy as quite a few to choose from. Was the Isopropyl Alcohol the lquid version rather than spray can?

Also any tips on getting marks off the paper - I guess from the chemicals during printing - learning all this again as some years since last printed!! Have a Nova tank but don't want to use the clips they provide as leave holes in the paper which isn't great when handing in as part of class project.

Also i have found that with Ilford MgIV glossy marks easily - which you recommend as an alternative MgIV pearl or MgIV satin?