Cleaning Old Slides

[LeftyRodriguez]

So, I inherited a treasure trove of old transparencies from my grandparents' extensive world travels in the 70s. Unfortunately, these are pretty dirty, covered in spots and whatnot. I plan on scanning these and doing some touch up in PS, but what is the best way to pre-clean them to try to ease my post-processing workload?

Also, any tips on scanning transparencies with a Canon 8800 scanner for best results?

Thanks.

 

[Early]

Try washing one with plain, cool water and a clean soft sponge. Be very gentle on the emulsion side. Hopefully, you won't soak the cardboard mount.

 

[LeftyRodriguez]

Should I use distilled water?

 

[Early]

Should I use distilled water?

You could, I suppose, but you'll probably be rinsing the sponge pretty often.

 

[compur]

There are commercially manufactured film cleaning products. Check photo supply retailers.

 

[nealjpage]

You might want to buy a bunch of modern plastic holders as I bet the cardboard will self-destruct once it gets wet.

 

[skieur]

For a lot of them, all that may be necessary is a can of air spray to get the dust and hairs off them.

skieur

 

[KevinDks]

For a lot of them, all that may be necessary is a can of air spray to get the dust and hairs off them.

skieur

That is exactly what I found with a batch of slides from 1971 that I bought recently, although I used a rocket blower rather than a can of air. Where I have a problem is the ones that have mold on them - so far I have tried Eclipse fluid (which contains methanol) and a PecPad, but that doesn't work. The fungus seems to grow into the emulsion and it just won't shift.

The same company that makes Eclipse advertises a photographic emulsion cleaner called PEC-12. It's expensive (£10 for 118ml) - anyone tried it?

Kevin