A couple more spotting tips...

[Adrian Holmes]

Before you apply your spotting brush (or pen) to the print, try breathing lightly onto the print surface first (as though you were cleaning a pair of spectacles). This makes it very slightly damp, and allows the spot toner to be absorbed into the emulsion more easily. Mind you, I'm an FB man - I can't vouch for the efficacy of this trick with RC papers.

Another tip: when you're holding the retouching brush, use the middle finger of your free hand to steady the brush shaft immediately below the point where you're holding it, as though you were a signwriter. This is the retouching equivalent of using a tripod, and you get far less 'camera shake' as a result.

To avoid having to resort to either of the above, here's a de-dusting trick I was taught: before you make a print, hold the loaded neg carrier just off perpendicular underneath the enlarger with the lamp on and the lens at full aperture. The resulting steeply-angled beam of light will show up every last mote of dust on the surface of the neg, and you can get to work with the blower brush.

Finally, let's hear it again for that great darkroom stand-by: the Incredible Nose Grease Trick. If you have the misfortune to get a tramline scratch down your neg (shiny side only; this doesn't work on the emulsion side), simply rub your finger on the side of your nose, and wipe the resultant slight greasiness back and forth along the tramline. Apparently nose grease has the same refractive index as film base, so effectively 'fills in' the scratch optically. Give it a go - I promise you'll be like one of those delighted mums in a 1960s Daz commercial - 'all those hard-to-shift scratches - they've completely gone!'