Preventing Or Eliminating Dust In Darkooms

Flauvius · Dec 1, 2008

Aside from keeping a darkroom clean, what else would you recommond to minimize or eliminate dusk from finding its way onto to your negatives or prints?

My darkroom is located in a basement of an old house with cement walls and hemlock joists. Although light tight, the darkoom is not "air tight" and needs its interior air-conditioner to keep the temperature at 68 degrees. Without the air conditioner, the darkoom's adjacent furnace causes the temperature in the darkroom to rise to 79 degrees when the house thermostat is set to 68 degrees.

Seperately, due to the emission of white and green safty lights, I am not able to use a nursey room humidifer that I was given. In this regard, the humidity in my darkroom this past weekend was 28%.

While helpful, dusting with an camel hair negative brush has not solved my dust problem. Spoting prints is no longer an option as Spot Ton is out of business.

So, any suggestions would be apprecited - as it is most frustrating to see an otherwise nice print runined with a few specks of dust.

Regards,

Flauvius

uwphotoer · Dec 1, 2008

Try something to reduce the static on the negative, I use those orange Ilford anti static cloths. Just one quick pass. Remember the more you brush the more static you are actually creating.

Dan Henderson · Dec 1, 2008

I use a Staticmaster brush with a small polonium element that ionizes (I think) the dust particles, allowing their removal from the negative. I also keep an air filter running in my darkroom to keep the air as clean as possible.

Regarding your humidifier, can you cover the lights with gaffer's tape? I did that on the microwave, radio, and a couple of other electronic devices in my darkroom.

Flauvius · Dec 1, 2008

The entire housing of the humidifer gives off mainly white light. My attempt to cover the housing was not practical. (I know, - I should buy another brand of humidifer.)

Incidently, I had a polonium anti-static brush - until I notice that it slightly fogged some film that was next to it. So, I figured it was more of a health threat that it was worth as a darkroom tool.

Flauvius

glbeas · Dec 1, 2008

I got rid of a lot of my dust by creating a positive pressure ventilation system with a filter and an inline duct fan. Push filtered air in and it pushes dust out the cracks in the walls and doors.
Is there any way to get into the humidifier housing and disconnect the lights?

removed account4 · Dec 1, 2008

i reduced most if not all the dust in my darkroom
by installing a drop ceiling.

ron110n · Dec 1, 2008

Ozone Generator to ionize the air and make it static free. The dust becomes heavy and fall to the ground instead of getting airborne. If you can find one with hepa filter,it would be better. They use this in Micro Chip Manufacturing Companies because chips are "very" dust and static sensitive. Obviously their line workers are dressed like astronauts.

jp80874 · Dec 1, 2008

jnanian said:
i reduced most if not all the dust in my darkroom
by installing a drop ceiling.

Robert,

I showed you this in September when you were here. Seal that dust out of the room.

If you do seal the room and pressurize it as mentioned above, put a furnace filter in to clean the incoming air.

John Powers

aparat · Dec 1, 2008

I have a similar problem. I try to keep the darkroom clean, I vacuum it, I also have an air purifier with a HEPA filter running. One of the best photo accessories I have ever bought is an anti-static film cleaner like this StaticVac. I got mine brand new from the auction site, branded Fujifilm. I think it came as part of a Fujifilm minilab. I bought it for less than $20 and it works beautifully. I also keep my enlarger and enlarger baseboard covered while I am not using it. Overall, my dust problem still exists but is under control.

jmcd · Dec 1, 2008

"Spoting prints is no longer an option as Spot Ton is out of business."

I'm all for keeping dust out of the darkroom, but I know for me I will probably keep on spotting at least now and then. There are other dyes for spotting available, if not SpoTone. One vial goes a long way.

Flauvius · Dec 1, 2008

John:

The ceiling joists can not be covered because the furnace, and which is "box-off" in the relatively small darkroom, gives off so much heat that there would be a serious fire hazzard from the hot water pipes being in proximitity with ceiling tiles.

In addition, I had to remove the enclosure I installed above the furnace because the furnace was not getting enough oxygen to burn oil without generating soot, and which came into the darkroom thourgh the furnace's bottom air vent.

Regards,

Flauvius

Mark Fisher · Dec 1, 2008

glbeas said:
I got rid of a lot of my dust by creating a positive pressure ventilation system with a filter and an inline duct fan. Push filtered air in and it pushes dust out the cracks in the walls and doors.
Is there any way to get into the humidifier housing and disconnect the lights?

Filtered positive ventilation is the way to go. I also run some warm water into my sink before printing to bring up the humidity. I've also heard of people misting the air with a spray bottle over the sink and the floor to keep the dust down. I rarely need to do spotting now (except those old negs form before the positive ventilation!)

Lastly, Marshall is now making spot tone. Freestyle has a number of options. I'm using their water color spotting colors and really like them.

df cardwell · Dec 1, 2008

Ground the enlarger.

ron110n · Dec 1, 2008

df cardwell said:
Ground the enlarger.

Amen! Plus a grounded static matt on tables. Engineering solution.

Flauvius · Dec 1, 2008

Grounding the enlarger - now that is a very good idea that I had not thought of. Given that I have a monster Fotar enlarger with adjacent water pipes, grounding the enlarger will not be a problem.

Thank you,

jeroldharter · Dec 1, 2008

You might post a photo or two of your darkroom.

The best way to prevent dust on the negatives is primary prevention, i.e. eliminating dust from the room. I understand that you have some physical constraints with the room setup. Apart from the advice already given, install flooring material such as laminate or vinyl that can be easily cleaned. Paint the wall with semigloss paint which can be easily cleaned. The ceiling is probably an issue, not sure what to say about that. Is it possible to wall off a small section or the room to isolate it from the furnace?

Our house has a central vacuum unit which I think helps a lot. I can vacuum my entire darkroom which is about 16 x 16 feet in about 15 minutes and all of the dust is removed to the basement with no exhaust into the darkroom.

Alex Hawley · Dec 1, 2008

If your concrete walls are un-coated, coat them. Bare concrete generates a lot of very fine debris on its own. Just a simple concrete paint coating, or any type of concrete coating, will abate that dust source, which may be a major one.

Larry Bullis · Dec 2, 2008

You are probably cleaning your darkroom too much. In doing so, you send the dust into the air, and your very low humidity sets the dust particles into repelling each other - and then they flock right straight to your negatives where they cling with a death grip.

Leave your wash tank full over night, and over the weekend. Get your humidity up to 65 -70 percent where it ought to be. Don't put your chemicals in bottles when you clean up, just put upside down trays over the stop and fix trays. Stop worrying.

Your dust problems will become non-existent within a day.

If you want MORE dust issues, invite your cat and pet her with a glass rod!

We had an anal compulsive person working at my school before I arrived. She cleaned and cleaned, and made her student helpers scrub. The worse it got the more she and her helpers scrubbed, and then the worse it got and the more they scrubbed. Tthe more she cleaned, the worse it got. When I got there, I instituted the above procedures.

She complained bitterly to the department head that I wasn't keeping the darkroom clean enough. I said, No, she's cleaning too much and making big problems. I refused to clean to her satisfaction. The problem disappeared and when she saw that it did, she disappeared, too. It's been fine ever since. In fact, it has been really great. I teach the students to spot. But they usually don't need to.

You can clean too much. Most people do. The main thing is humidity. You need it.

I do not expect anyone to believe this, and you probably won't, and you will fight dust for the rest of your life. I, however, have almost NO dust problems whatsoever. Yes, I still spot prints. No, I don't spot much.

I suspect that you'd have real trouble with some of the really dirty darkrooms I've worked in, over my 45 year career. I used to have a lot of dust problems, to where I would be removing individual spots of dust from the negatives with a number 00 brush with the condenser lifted up and the light on. That was just until I adopted the above practices. I'm lazy. When I quit worrying, there were no further problems. Try it. Let us know what you find.

bobwysiwyg · Dec 2, 2008

Makes a good deal of sense, though living where I do and our cold winters, maintaining 65-70% wouldn't be advisable, but I get your point.

df cardwell · Dec 2, 2008

The main thing is humidity. You need it.

I MOP the floor, not sweep. But not very often.

Bowzart's unhygenic approach to clean darkrooms is pretty much my style, too, and with the same results ... I have a fine collection of spotting brushes, which I use mainly as test targets in the studio.

I disagree about cats, however. Cats are an inevitable part of darkroom life, and must be accommodated.

I spray mine regularly with End-Dust. Works great.

pesphoto · Dec 2, 2008

jmcd said:
"Spoting prints is no longer an option as Spot Ton is out of business."

I'm all for keeping dust out of the darkroom, but I know for me I will probably keep on spotting at least now and then. There are other dyes for spotting available, if not SpoTone. One vial goes a long way.

Spot pens work pretty well.
http://www.freestylephoto.biz/19910-Spotpen-BandW-Neutral-Tone-10-Pen-Set

Martin Aislabie · Dec 2, 2008

I dust my darkroom work surfaces about an hour before I use it with damp/wet cloths.

These pick up the dust and leave moisture behind.

I dust for cobwebs about every month at the end of a printing session

I also have open trays of water to hold prints before taking them upstairs for washing

I also use an Ioniser from my local pharmacy (cost about 10 UK Pounds / 15 US Dollars) with a piece of black tape over the now obligatory LED

I also try in vain to banish my cats from the darkroom - but the harder I try to shoo them away the more determined they are to come and "help" :rolleyes:

Martin

dpurdy · Dec 2, 2008

I also have an incredibly unclean darkroom/basement with a constant companion black cat sitting on the stool watching me work. I have no problem with dust. I dry film in a cabinet that is dust free due to the wetness of it's environment. The humidity of the basement hangs around 60%. I spend more time vacuuming the rest of the house so the crap stops working it's way down stairs. I think the OPs problem is the result of the low humidity and stirring things up. But what about one of those dust remover machine things that asthmatic people use?
Dennis

Sal Santamaura · Dec 2, 2008

Do you have a furnace or boiler? It's not clear; you refer to hot pipes but use the term "furnace." If it's a boiler, as I suspect, my two suggestions are:

Tighten up the building's envelope, sealing and insulating as appropriate
Replace your heating appliance with a high-efficiency sealed-combustion unit. The current drop in oil prices won't last forever. Fuel savings will probably repay these investments fairly quickly.

After you've made those improvements, your darkroom dust issues will likely be mostly gone. Here's a site

http://forums.invision.net/index.cfm?CFApp=2

where you can obtain good advice. Use the "Find a Professional" feature under the "Resources" tab on top.

Flauvius said:
John:

The ceiling joists can not be covered because the furnace, and which is "box-off" in the relatively small darkroom, gives off so much heat that there would be a serious fire hazzard from the hot water pipes being in proximitity with ceiling tiles.

In addition, I had to remove the enclosure I installed above the furnace because the furnace was not getting enough oxygen to burn oil without generating soot, and which came into the darkroom thourgh the furnace's bottom air vent.

Regards,

Flauvius

Larry Bullis · Dec 2, 2008

dust, humidity, spotting brushes, cats, cockroaches and geckos

bobwysiwyg said:
Makes a good deal of sense, though living where I do and our cold winters, maintaining 65-70% wouldn't be advisable, but I get your point.

Actually, 70% might be a bit much, but we humans need moisture in the air too, not just for the dust. Even out here in sog-land, where there is a lot of moisture in the air, when it is cool outside the air indoors is very dry. The air outside may have a high relative humidity, but when it is warmed up, the same amount of moisture becomes very little in relative terms. I get a persistent cough and skin problems unless I keep something going to keep that humidity up. I feel really great in a tropical rainforest, but having a darkroom there would be really difficult; that much humidity would destroy equipment and materials.

Spotting brushes: I only have one. It is an Isabey 6229 Repique. Actually, I guess I have a few copies of the same item. But I only ever need one, and this one does the job. These are hard to find, and expensive; it's about $16 for a tiny little brush. The ones they sell in photo stores are, by comparison, probably more appropriate for applying makeup than for spotting. You'd go to a camera store to buy a BRUSH? When people who work at camera stores probably got there through their interest in photography? When so often that interest developed because they think they can't draw -- some second grade teacher said to them: "Johnny, that doesn't look like a horsey!"? That's what pulled me into photography, but then I went to art school, too, and ended up doing a lot of drawing anyway. A lot of the students I get need an art credit and take photography to avoid having to draw. It seems that lots of people go into photography to avoid brushes and thus have very little idea of what a well designed and well made brush is all about.

df cardwell; said:
I disagree about cats, however. Cats are an inevitable part of darkroom life, and must be accommodated.

I spray mine regularly with End-Dust. Works great.

We have a "No Dead Creature Gifts" policy which is often hard to enforce. Dried up dead things really aren't helpful. It is handy to keep a cat around for rubbing your negatives on when you need to add random textural interest. If you live in a place where there are lots of cockroaches, and sometimes have unexpected photograms of a cockroach or two on your prints, and if that bothers you, you might need to consider keeping some geckos around. Geckos like a fair amount of humidity, too.

See, it all works together in a very neat system - as if directed by an Invisible Hand.

Preventing Or Eliminating Dust In Darkooms

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency