Dan,

I went through the same issues when I started. I spoke to Greg Susong about how he managed to get such good UV shots.

It's taken a bit of trial & error but I reckon I've got it sussed now. There's a couple of things you'll need. The first is half decent UV light. Forget the portable ones or pen light UV's, they're just not powerful enough (been there done that). I found one on ebay which uses a 15watt UV tube and is mains powered. Works a treat. The other thing that makes it easy is a USB microscope. Again I found one on ebay for around AUS$70. Mine is a Digital Blue QX5. I reckon they were orinally made for the kids market for doing projects and such but I think it they works a treat! I'm sure there's other more expensive models but this works just fine for what I need.

I just push the bed of the microscope up to the UV tube & that's it. The only other thing I've had to do occassionally is cover the light & microscope with a white pilow case or similar to get the diretc UV light brightness on a certian chip, mostly ones with dark inlays.

From then I edit them all in photoshop, from size to brightness & clarity.

Hope that helps.

Cheers, Tim.