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Author Topic: Weird scratches on film Stan Gunn Expert Film Handler Posts: 176 From: Clematis, in the hills near Melbourne Australia Registered: Aug 2000 posted 06-30-2003 01:25 AM                        I've seen this sort of pattern on film that was held to tight between the fingers while hand winding, causing the film to take on a v shape between the fingers.  |  IP: Logged John Anastasio Master Film Handler Posts: 325 From: Trenton, NJ, USA Registered: Sep 2000 posted 06-30-2003 05:10 AM                        The more I look at the pictures, the more I'm convinced that Jeff's answer is the right one. Scratches would be the same on each frame. These look more like cracks and the pattern is random. The sudden expansion/contraction caused by a high intensity arc makes sense to me. And like you say....Jeff's our "stock" expert.  |  IP: Logged John Pytlak Film God Posts: 9987 From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922 Registered: Jan 2000 posted 07-02-2003 10:29 AM                        I agree that they have the appearance of some sort of stress cracking, perhaps caused by severely pinching the film while it was too dry and brittle. From the photo, it does not look like a "hot spot" heat damage, which is usually isolated to the darkest areas of the image that absorb the radiant energy during projection. How old is the print? Unlike incorporated coupler films, dye transfer prints do not have separate emulsion layers for each dye, so emulsion-side scratches do NOT show the usual progression of black->green->yellow->white scratches with increasing severity of the scratch.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 07-03-2003 01:58 AM                        quote: Scratches would be the same on each frame. These look more like cracks and the pattern is random. They're not indentical on each frame, but they don't look totally random to me either - similar, but not identical. The scratch patterns seem to stem from the bottom of each frame and branch out toward the top. The similarity would suggest to me that the primary cause of the emulsion cracking took place when each frame was stationary in the gate - entirely consistent with heat damage as suggested by Jeff. Could it possibly be that base shrinkage on quite an old element (I notice film curl toward the top left of the picture) had stressed the gelatine and/or dye layers, making the emulsion quite fragile to start with, and then the extra stress caused by the lamp heat finally pushed it over the edge and inflicted those cracks?  |  IP: Logged

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