negative with spots.

I have a series of black and white negatives with lots of spots. They are 120, the brand is Lucky and I think it's a defect of the negatives themselves: poor conservation, past dates, etc. Do you know if there is any way to clean them if possible? Some of these photos are absolutely irreplaceable. Thank you for your invaluable collaboration.

I add a fragment of one of the negatives.

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Dust is everywhere. When film was king,everybody had to "spot" their prints to eliminate the dust specks. Your picture is unusually clear of spots so your lab techniques must be good.

the motteling in the skin tones looks more like film defect or something with the developing process used.

 

how were they processed?

 

no way to fix that unless you want to try spotting them, but with so much, i doubt you will be able to save it. air brushing a print, then making a neg of that may work?

That looks like a positive image to me. Is that skin mottling on the actual negative?

Not sure but this looks a little like mold or some kind of fungus growing on your negative. Could be a poor wash after fixing. I'm not sure of a way to clean that though. Best chance may be to have the negs scanned and then photoshop the problem out.

 

Rick H.

To me, the mottling looks like what you get if the film was in a damp environment. The backing paper can leave a residue on the film in that case. I don't know that it's possible to remove.

If you put the film in the fridge or freezer without the vapor-tight packaging it is shipped in, this sort of damp spotting can result.

Hello everyone. Both Lucky & Shanghi brands of film, both 35 & 120 mm sizes, "suffered" from these "cottage cheese" emulsion defects thru out their production life. I speak from having had this occur numerous times. My only suggestion is to use any remaining stocks you might have as a test for camera light leaks. Aloha, Bill

You can actually sit there and clean these up in Photoshop with cloning and that rubber stamp tool. I've done it successfully with film that was far more damaged. You know all that already. The questions are 1) how much time do you have? and 2) how important is it for you to have these in an "improved" form?