Coolscan V scratching my B&W negs

[mllanos1111]

Help,
The coolscan V is leaving a rub or roller mark down the middle of my B&W negs.
I haven't noticed it on color only on this roll that I processed last night.
It's Tri-X and it didn't leave any marks on the first 10 frames, but it is now. I'm a little paranoid to scan anymore until I figure this out.
I haven't tried to remove the marks so I don't know if it's permanent or not.
What do I do? Has anyone else had this issue?

 

[Bill Blackwell]

I use the same scanner and have never had a problem. In fact, I was unaware that anything touched the film in the scanning process. AFAIK, the only contact happens when you load the film into the holder.

I would think whatever the issue is has nothing to do with the scanner.

 

[DelDavis]

You know what? If I'm looking at what I think you're referring to -- that faint irregular horizontal streak -- it looks like a drying mark to me. Some combination of my water/drying technique causes them. Of course, when I squeegee, they disappear, but half the time I'm left with scratches from that action. I do use the same scanner as you, and have never seen it leave such marks.

Apple's Aperture with its retouch tool has worked wonders with removing dust and drying marks from my black and whites. But there is the caveat that so far the retouch tool only works on images that use an RGB color space. I think it's a bug...

 

[Damaso]

If you really think it is the roller then take the film feeder out, open it up and clean the rollers with a Q-tip and some distilled water or lens cleaner. You can use some compressed air as well but I doubt that it ultimately really is the scanner...

 

[kipkeston]

You know what? If I'm looking at what I think you're referring to -- that faint irregular horizontal streak -- it looks like a drying mark to me. Some combination of my water/drying technique causes them. Of course, when I squeegee, they disappear, but half the time I'm left with scratches from that action. I do use the same scanner as you, and have never seen it leave such marks.

Apple's Aperture with its retouch tool has worked wonders with removing dust and drying marks from my black and whites. But there is the caveat that so far the retouch tool only works on images that use an RGB color space. I think it's a bug...

Yep, I was thinking water mark too!

 

[rich815]

Was the film perfectly 100% dry when you scanned it?

 

[mllanos1111]

My negs get washed for at least 15 minutes after I use the HCA and then I rinse them several times with distilled water and then Photo-Flo.
I opened up the holder and cleaned it with a PEC PAD and then I used compress air to blow it out.
I then cleaned the negs with the PEC Archival Emulsion cleaner and the marks came off! 🙂
Just to be sure I rescanned the negs and they look good. I was so paranoid especially because the negs were of my daughters birth and I wasn't about to do a take two! lol
Thank you everyone for all the ideas.

 

[minoltist7]

AFAIK nothing in the scanner touches middle of the film.
This looks like drying mark from water.
I use wetting agent but it doesn't prevent drying marks completely... so I wipe film gently with cotton pads in the end.

 

[arnulf]

I agree with the drying mark theory. If it were the scanner, I'm pretty sure the line would be straighter, or?

Keep on scanning ;-)
arnulf

 

[photophorous]

This does look like a drying mark, but I had a perfectly straight line down the middle of some B&W negatives a while back (using a Coolscan V). I never figured out what caused it (unimportant shots), but I think it must have been a roller in the film strip feeder, and maybe the film wasn't dry enough.

Paul

 

[mllanos1111]

It looks to me like the film strip feeder has rollers in the middle that pull the film in.
I dont know what caused it, maybe it's because I applied the photo-flo differently this time. I changed the way I do that now and I didnt have the problem with the next roll. The other roll I shot was Efke 25 and that seemed fine. I'm still playing with times on it but here is a sample from that roll.