Spotting negatives

Can anyone suggest what the best product for spotting very tiny (and numerable!) dust marks on a negative is?

This is not a very practical option with small negatives (35mm, for example), but it is a very powerful tool with large format.

You can use the same materials used for spotting prints - Spottone is no longer being made, but Marshall's as a set of dyes that are very similar.

Another trick is to us a colored watercolor dye such as Dr. Martin's. Using a magenta dye emulated the effect of using a higher contrast printing filter with VC paper - it increases contrast. That can be helpful in masking spots.

Dyes are also useful in making tonal adjustments in the negative such that it carries through to the print. A suggestion is to tape a sectond sheet of fixed and washed film to the non-emulsion side of the negative and make the adjustments on it - that way, if you don't like the changes, they are reversable by simply removing the second film. Also, separating the adjustments from the image in the negative by the thickness of two sheets of film helps prevent hard edges.

Jarvman said:

Can anyone suggest what the best product for spotting very tiny (and numerable!) dust marks on a negative is?

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The only thing I can imagine here is that you have some large format negatives that have many little blank spots in the image area that print black. OK, you need to add density to the blank parts so that they print lighter. There are several things you can do. Spotone (or Spot-All as it's now known) might work, and so will a soft pencil. If it's just dust and prints white, then forget it. You'll only make it worse by retouching the negative. That's when you start spotting the prints. If you're trying to do this with 35 mm negatives, forget it - they are too small. Maybe you can get away with doing it on medium format negatives.

Sorry should've been more specific, they're many blank spots on a 7x17" neg. I've heard spottone mentioned but where can i buy some spot-all from?

I have used a red sharpie pen with extra fine tip. Works for larger spots, but not so well for very small. The standard chemical to use is Crocein Scarlet. I believe you can get it from Photographers Formulary, although it might have a different name.

Jon

Yes, Crocein Scarlet is absolutely the right thing to use, and has been the standard for this type of work for ages if you can find it. Spot-All should be available at any decent camera shop. Calumet has it, so does Adorama, and Freestyle. Just search for "Spot-All" on their respective web sites.