Digital BW, The Print

mwesley3 wrote:
> Ken, Gary,
> 
> A company called "invent it" used to sell refrigerator magnet 
> material for inkjet printing in 8.5X11 sheets that was roughly the 
> same thickness as the flatbed negative holders. Some people had 
> sucess cutting out negative holders and using the magnetic force to 
> hold the two pieces together with the negative in between. Wet 
> mounting is prefered but with an 8X10 neg on on an letter size 
> scanner it might be tough.
> 
> Martin

There's magnetic vinyl of 1 mm thick that is used in the sign 
industry (and on refrigerators), 2  feet wide on roll or 
larger. You can cut film holders of that material. See my page:
http://www.pigment-print.com/CTG_0049/target0.html

Imacon uses a similar magnetic holder (but curved) for their 
scanners. It isn't new as similar holders existed for enlargers.

The problem with the 8x10 is that there's not enough margin 
left for the magnetic material to get some rigidity and enough 
clamping power. You either have to make a larger mask that is 
on top of  the rim around the scanbed and by that the film is 
at 2.5 + 1 mm above the bed and 2.5 mm out of best focus. Then 
you better put the film right on the glassbed where it will be 
1 mm out of best focus.

A better way would be to use float glass of 1,5 mm thick that 
fits just within the rim around the scan bed and make a black 
mask that has a window size of the actual image border on the 
film and overlaps the rim edge by an inch all around. Glue the 
mask (polystyreen, pvc sheet, etc) to the glass. The glass 
then hangs at 1 mm above the glassbed of the scanner. Wetmount 
the film to the underside of the glass. It will be plane, have 
good light transmission, the mask cuts off any stray light and 
the film will not warm up by the lamp light as the glass is in 
between. BTW, you still need that calibration window at the 
start of the scan so that has to be cut in the mask too.


Ernst


                   --
           Ernst Dinkla


www.pigment-print.com
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