The case of the scratched negatives

My 35mm negatives were scanning with horizontal scratches across most frames. It was a time-consuming pain in the ass to remove those scratches in post — and sometimes, it was impossible. It was enormously frustrating. So I put on my detective hat and started sleuthing to solve the mystery. A frame where I didn’t notice a scratch before uploading it to Flickr. Do you see it? Pentax ME, 50mm f/1.7 SMC Pentax-M, AristaPan 100, Rodinal 1+25, 2026 First I wondered whether the squeegee I use to speed drying of my negatives was causing the scratches. Maybe mine had worn out from age and use. I bought a fresh one, but it didn’t change anything. Then I tried just not squeegeeing. It didn’t change anything, either. I eliminated the squeegee from the equation. (I also eliminated the squeegee itself. It turns out that the negatives dry just fine without it.) This is when I noticed that my medium-format negatives were always scratch-free. That made me wonder about my scanning flow. I use a…