wrote: > There is nothing like B&W negatives for longevity.
You think? I'm scanning negs from 20-30 years ago before it's too late. Mould is a big issue and a swine to try and fix. These were very well processed and washed but ironically that encourages mould. OK, storage in a humidity and temp controlled environment, with filtered atmosphere to keep the spores away, would produce a different outcome, but acetate film base is unstable anyhow. I don't seem to have that problem yet myself, but I know of one photographer who has widespread vinegar-rot syndrome on negs of similar age to my own. http://www.rit.edu/~661www1/sub_pages/acetguid.pdf So B&W film is in general no better than an inkjet of mediocre longevity, or a CD carelessly stored. Shoot on Estar base and invest in a clean room to do better. I've dispensed with wet printing a couple of years ago, after 30yrs of fighting the materials. Cone Piezography produces a very different sort of print, but likeable in its own terms and digital workflow has overwhelming advantages and control (specially where mouldy negs are concerned). Besides all of the bromides I really liked have either been discontinued or sanitised to mediocrity for H&S reasons. There is simply nothing around that comes close to, say, the original Agfa Record Rapid, stuffed as it was with noxious Cobalt and God knows what. There are technologies for printing dig on bromide or Ciba for those who can't accept inkjet aesthetics, eg http://www.owenboyd.com/index.html Personally I love the smooth tonality of dig, even for B&W. I mostly used the finer grain films, TMax CN, Delta, XP1/2 anyhow, to escape grain. Before those, I used solvent developers, or pushed ISO125 in 2-bath rather than put up with the offensive mush. Regards Tony Sleep - http://www.halftone.co.uk ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body