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Ektachrome damage when fungus isn't fungus?


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I have many Ektachrome slides (30 years old).  Most have developed what I thought was fungus.  The damage appears almost like brown snowflakes.  In searching for any possible ways to fix this I came up with “it was not reversable.”  Until I came across a post that stated sometimes this damage is not fungus but separation of the film layers.  A way to test for this is to breath on the emulsion side (like you were trying to fog a mirror).   Sounded weird but I thought I’d give it a try (since I’m digitizing these even a short-term repair may be good enough) much to my surprise it did work.  This didn’t completely remove the issue but almost.  Problem is one can only do this for so long before you start getting dizzy.  Does anyone have knowledge of this and a more efficient way to do this?  

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All you're doing is breathing some water vapour onto the film and re-humidifying it temporarily. 

The steam from a kettle should do the same thing. A fully boiling kettle might be too hot and aggressive, but a cooling kettle still emitting water vapour should be safe. Or a humidifier if you have one. 

You might have to experiment with a scrap frame, if you have one, to get the kettle temperature, or distance from the spout, just right

Edited by rodeo_joe1
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