Digital Darkroom Tip of the Week
This Week's Tip:
Quadtone Ink Cartidges
Did you know that you can convert your Epson or Hewlett Packard 4 or 6 color printer into a Quadtone Black & White printer?
The Quadtone system takes your ordinary color ink cartridges and replaces them with varying shades of grey. These shades of grey are used to produce black and white prints that closely match conventional darkroom prints. This is an amazing system that makes a huge difference in the digital printing of black & white photographs. The Quadtone inks are also of Archival quality, so your prints will not vanish in a couple of years.
Last Week's Tip:
Ever notice how dust always appears in your scanned images? Their are a few steps you can take to minimize this.
Always prepare your slide or negative properly inserting it into the scanner. Wipe it gently with an anti-static brush and/or use compressed air lightly to blow off dust (if you try compressed air, be careful. Always point up and spray some first before placing the film on the path of the compressed air. This will make sure that water or moisture does not come out of the can and get on the film. To be perfectly safe, use a rubber hand bulb dust blower. However, I find these inaffective and have found compressed air works good when you know how to use it. Experiment on a bad piece of film first until you understand how it works safely).
Make sure that your scanner is in a clean environment. keep it away from carpet, pillows and duty furniture. Place it on a clean table, in a clean environment and preferably surrounded by a tile floor. A humidifier set on low in the room will stop static electricity and help keep dust from attaching itself to your film.
Try one of Nikon's scanners or the new scanners from Polaroid or Microtek. They include special software which removes the dust from the images. Sounds hokey, but it works well and this should be a standard which all manufacturers include with their scanners.
Need a super quality, easy to use film scanner for minimum dollars?
Get the HP Photosmart, available direct from HP for only $299.00. Belive me when I tell you that you can't beat this deal. I have used one of these for years. They produce excellent results and are very reliable & easy to use.