20131205

BIG NEWS! I’ve managed to greatly improve the quality of a scan. Here’s how: the plate’s glass side is thoroughly cleaned with mild soap and then with isopropyl alcohol; the emulsion side is gently rubbed with silicone oil.

All three scans were processed with the same settings, even the Photoshop curve was the same. Here’s a gif (made by Alin — thanks, bro!) to easily spot the differences:

The downside is i cannot use this procedure on damaged plates (with emulsion flakes or broken glass). Also it takes a very long time to prepare the plates, so expect reduced output in the future.