Cleaning Up Scans

Or you can enlist the help of someone with way too damn much time on her hands. XD
http://mars.walagata.com/w/kaib/img.aspx.jpg

Thats a shame it didn't work. Often cels that are attached to watercolor backgrounds get spotting from where the paint rubs off the bg and on to the cel. I have gotten a lot of cels like that, and that kind of spotting CAN be wiped off. If you have spotting in between the layers, thats different. :(

Unfortunately its hard to tell from a scan.

Gabriel,

Yes, the spotting is in between the layers of the cel. The background hides a lot of the "crud" that is on the layers of the cel. All 4 layers have stuff on them.

I got a suggestion to take a cotton swab and some isopropyl alcohol to attempt to clean the layers of acetate. Since this was only a $15 cel, I figured I?d try it. It seemed to help some, but the cel still looks bad. It was a pain because I had to be very careful not to get anywhere close to the paint or retrace lines as the alcohol will take these off the acetate as well?

I don?t know how much more effort I want to put into this cel. I think my time might be better spent either adding more cels to my gallery or watching more "You're Under Arrest". I might just forget about cleaning it up any more and just leave it as it is?


Zag,

I appreciate the offer, but I don't know if it will end up helping much. I can send you a larger scan if you'd really like to give it a shot. Leave me feedback with your e-mail address if you do...

I wonder if this problem is actually a breakdown of the acetate itself? I have this problem on several cels too- particularly the multi-layer ones; I think this is caused when they are stacked in the studio's vaults and the layers rub against each other. The great weight of other cels on top of them doesn't help matters.

The other sugestions that others have given here are good to try. Taking a digtal camera shot might be a way to disguise this problem since you can direct the light away fromthe problem areas.

C'later!