I’ve been restoring a few thousand old family photos that I pulled out of my family’s basement. Most are stored safely in sleeves. Some (like this one) have some weird gunk on the emulsion side of the photo, and I’m not sure what caused it. It’s causing a wavy, rippling effect in the image.
Before trying anything, I scanned the film as is just to preserve in case anything goes wrong.
I’ve tried soaking in distilled water for a while before hanging to dry for a few hours. When that didnt work, I moved on to try 99% rubbing alcohol with a lint free microfiber cloth, gently wiping in ine direction.
However, neither of these worked to clean the gunk off.
I’m not sure what it could be — it SEEMS like it’s only one the one strip (4 photos long), so I dont think it would be from developing chemicals, but I could be wrong? What else can I do to clean this off?