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 Post subject: How do I clean the stones?
PostPosted: Mon Jun 22, 2020 5:03 pm 
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This might be a ridiculous question but nothing I try seems to work well.
How do you clean a stone to look at it under a microscope? the best I've managed so far is isopropanol wiped with lens cleaning tissue or better with a linen, lint-free tea towel. The spinels are particularly annoying, do they build up a static charge? Even after careful cleaning, they look like they've been rolled in shake-and-bake under the microscope. Finger oil cleans up with no problem but the dust...


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 Post subject: Re: How do I clean the stones?
PostPosted: Mon Jun 22, 2020 6:18 pm 
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Not a ridiculous question at all. Dust is everywhere, and as you'd guessed many stones do build up static electricity from rubbing or warming up or being pressed on--not sure how spinel rates on that but tourmaline, for instance, can be quite bad about it.
I use the same procedure to clean stones for photographing as I do cleaning lenses (though I'm a bit more careful with lenses)--I have a big box of q tips and a bottle of isopropyl alcohol, and I wipe the stone gently with alcohol on the q tip and then throw the q tip away. It feels wasteful but once you try even wiping a stone off with a q tip that's sat out for a bit you'll realize you're sometimes adding as much dust as you're removing.
Then there's the final step: on some stones or samples it isn't possible to get all the dust removed, so you have to edit it out in post. It's not a big deal in photoshop (and I assume not hard in free programs like GIMP either), and it makes a night and day difference.
As a side-note, if you haven't already, you should read Nathan Renfro's article on digital gem photomicrography if you haven't, it's the best introduction to the topic available: https://www.gia.edu/gems-gemology/summe ... emologists

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 Post subject: Re: How do I clean the stones?
PostPosted: Mon Jun 22, 2020 7:51 pm 
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Thank you Stephen, I'll try the q-tips. Good old Photoshop!


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