attracting the dust off photos

Unk-

Beware that the dust may be on the under side of the scanner's glass. I tried two separate scanners before I realized that. Perhaps your carbon fibre brush might help if it was possible to access the under side of the glass.

My ultimate solution was to remove the dust by editing the scanned image.

Fred

You certainly can make such a gizmo. But my experience is that anything th at I can think of , someone else has already thought of it. So recommend l ooking on Amazon, Ebay , and AliExresss for static or dust. They work by ionising the air and the ions then neutralise the charge on the film or LP. You might also try the Salvation Army. I have gotten several from there, but you can not depend on one being in the store.

Dan

One lot equals how many photos?

Your vinyl record anti-static brush probably uses some kind of alpha emitter, such as polonium 210. Not exactly the safest thing to have around the house.

For cleaning the photos, compressed air, either in a can, or from a small air compressor with an inline water trap and filter. Keep it simple. Try to blow it away from the scanner.

If you have very low humidity and a static electricity problem, a little laundry fabric softener and some water (1:4) in a spray bottle.

I helped a neighbor scan what looks like 1200 family photos. The first thing I had to do was to blow and clean the dust out of the scanner, remove the grease that had settled on the mirrors, and remove what looked like black anti-reflective paint chips from the optics. I then ran test prints for both black and white paper to see if there was any remaining dust or uneven exposure. The ends of the fluorescent tube had darkened and was causing darkening at vertical edges of the page. Not having a decent replacement, we just avoided using the edges of the glass plate. I also checked for dead pixels, but didn't find any. That's usually a camera problem, not a scanner. She was about half way through last weekend and wondering if her kids would appreciate the effort.

I hope that you're NOT thinking of a negative ion generator, which allegedly have health benefits. These generate static electricity, not dissipated it. My experience with such devices is that the high voltage required tends to "leak" out of the package and destroy sensitive electronics.

They also generate ozone, which rots rubber and some plastics. One of my customers used a negative ion generator near his laptop. After the

On 05/02/2018 11:44 AM, Jeff Liebermann wrote: ...

So Sharper Image would have us believe. I had asthma, and sister gave me one of their swell Ionic Breeze air purifiers. As-Seen-On-TV!

And lungs.

I set my Ionic Breeze rather near the bird cage. The first parakeet died within a few days.

Yep. It's not very difficult to find internet articles on the dangers of using a negative ion generator:

Note: I'm still not sure if this was the device suggested by Dan.

That's cruel, but definitive.

There's another problem with negative ion generators. The HiV power supplies seem to generate quite a bit of RFI (radio frequency interference). I was helping a friend chase down an intermittent source of RFI that was interfering with HF (high frequency) communications. He found that it was coming from a Sharper Image Ionic Breeze located next door. Sharper Image replaced the unit under warranty, but the replacement produced only slightly less RFI.

I researched it a few days too late. All Sharper Image had to share about ozone, in their infomercials or in writing, was something like 'that's the sweet smell after a thunderstorm' on a little paper inside the box.

I heard a thud as the poor bird fell to the floor of the cage. It flopped around violently, for only about a minute, then it was dead.

A soft microfibre cloth is as good as anything. It is using static electricity to attract the dust after physically disturbing it.

They worked a bit but were mainly hype.

I once walked into the office of a health practitioner (alternative- medicine kind, I believe) where they had an actual ozone generator operating... supposedly to help germ-proof the office, I believe.

After two minutes my eyes were burning. Got out of there fast, never went back.

Use a flat metal plate at thousands of volts DC. Mount the photograph flat. Bring the metal plate close to the photo until the cleansing process has lifted the tiny motes away from the fixed silver nitrate print. Or a million volts, whatever it takes to refrain from touching the picture or making pollution.

On 05/03/2018 12:43 PM, Dave Platt wrote: ...

A classmate of mine, around 1980, had an antique ozone generator with glowing, buzzing glass tubes. It was awesome! Much like this one.

Dust on glass is just as bad as on photos (there's some glass finishing products that control static, intended for copy machines, that can help).

The best solution, though, is a drum scanner. It holds the item in a cylindrical curve, so it's self-supporting against warp, and sandwiched between two flexible metal frames to keep the edges smooth. No glass (except the lens, which has surfaces that are not in the focus plane).

Microfiber polishing cloths, or chamois, work fairly well. It doesn't hurt, either,, to dust and vacuum the immediate area during a scanning session.