Black spots
 

Every once in a while after scanning a slide I see numerous small black spots. I have tried brushing, canned air and two different negative cleaners to no effect. Again -- it isn't all my slides that have these black spots. Could it be a processing problem? I mainly shot Kodachrome 64 and they were all processed in Texas.

I use a soft lens brush on my slides before scanning, and usually a few black spots persist. Most times, I believe that they are dust particles that are more firmly stuck to the film, but I have also heard of cases where Kodachromes have developed a "mold" in the emulsion. I have seen a very few of my slides that may be exhibiting this issue, and that's the reason that I have begun a very long-term project to digitize my entire collection.

No matter what the cause, I clone out the remaining spots while processing in Lightroom.

Doug Lilly

Mold! I had not thought of that. I use the spot healing brush to zap the black spots
but it gets time consuming. Thanks for the reply.

Loupe
 

Charles - have you looked at the slides with a loupe to see what you can see?

Yes and damned if i see anything. Maybe I need a microscope?

You also may be seeing small spots that seem to develop in the skies of some of my photos. I think these are possibly film imperfections, and they will fade away if you lighten the sky. They also disappear if you blur the sky using the adjustment brush.

Good suggestions. Thanks