BW film developing - drying marks

BW film developing - drying marks

  • Yes I do.

    Votes: 625 93.8%

  • No I don't.

    Votes: 8 1.2%

  • I will one day, I promise.

    Votes: 32 4.8%

  • I tried it and won't do it again.

    Votes: 1 0.2%
  • Total voters
    666
I use Kodak Photo-Flo. After hanging up the film I pick up the water drops with two ordinary household sponges that have never been used for anything else. I keep them in a ziplock bag, so they stay moist with Photo-Flo treated water. I put one behind the film, one in front, and move them very lightly and very slowly down the film. I go slowly because it takes a finite amount of time for water to move from the film into the sponge. It's not instantaneous. By going slowly I get all the surface water off in one pass. Pressure is kept extremely light to avoid scratching. No problems ever with St. Louis water in 40 years, but if I moved someplace & had problems, I would use distilled water.
 
Rinsing the film in alcohol as a last bath should help. The alcohol displaces the water in the film. As an added side-effect you get a completely dry film in five minutes.

Philipp
 
I use 96% Polish vodka used for making fruit punch. (Needless to say that there's a lot of punch in the punch.) No problem. Surgical spirit should be fine.

Denaturised alcohol at 70% or so should be fine, too, but I hear that some denaturisation agents leave a residue and some don't - try yours with a piece of film first. Tetenal used to sell alcohol for this purpose under the "Drysonal" label.
 
alcohol dries out surfaces very quickly. I am not sure it's a good idea to use very concentrated alcohol as final bath, might make the film crack or something.
Just try it on your hand. It feels VERY strangely dry after an alcohol wash.

When I started using real wetting agent(amaloco, 2.5 euro per 50 ml - or is it 100ml? enough for ages) dissolved in distilled water, i stopped getting drying marks. Nothing else helped (did not try the "cheap shampoo" trick though).

Anyway - 100 % alcohol does not exist. ALcohol always traps water from the air and it is very difficult to separate it. Just as a side info.
 
Yup. A teensie drop of wetting agent in distilled water works every time. And it's super cheap. Why bother with more difficult or more expensive methods that may or may not work?
 
Pherdinand said:
Anyway - 100 % alcohol does not exist. ALcohol always traps water from the air and it is very difficult to separate it. Just as a side info.
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I'm no chemist, so take this with a grain of salt, but I remember reading the way to purify your alcohol was to place it in a freezer at minus 20C or so, for a while, then introduce some ice cubes into the liquid. The ice will attract the water and trap it, thus removing the water from the alcohol. Result - very pure alcohol!

I now do my final rinse with de-mineralised water (no additives), then hang the negs to dry outside the house, in the evening. A slight breeze is perfect. The air outside is significantly less dusty than the air inside the house, and the negs dry more slowly, with no dust strapped in the water on the negs before drying. Since adopting this practice I have had zero water marks.
 
One of the tips I have read on the Roger and Frances pages, is to dry the strips of film in diagonal, so that the water goes onto one of the edges and flows away faster. It might not remove the problem but it should help.
 
OK, here's my bit...

I use diluted Fairy Liquid as a wetting agent (I'm not paying through the nose for tiny bottles of fancy photo soap), and I never ever use a film scratcher (or "squeegee" as those diabolical manifestations are more commonly known). I never get drying marks, but I'm lucky to live in an area with very soft water - if I didn't, I'd do my final soak and wetting dip using distilled water.
 
I use Fairy Liquid as well. Apparently it's bad for the emulsion but frankly I'm sure I'm doing worse things in the developing anyway. I also use deionised (car radiator) water for the final rinse. Squirt in a few drops of washing up liquid after the water's gone in and the water will run out beautifully.

I used to use a chamois - got dust and scratches all over my negatives. Now I just let it dry naturally.
 
OK, without having read all the other "here's what I do" posts, here's mine:

1. Throw the squeegee away.
2. After all the rinsing I make up 300 ml of distilled/de-ionised water with about 1 ml of Ilfotol (wetting agent).
3. Wash the film in this for a minute or so.
4. Pour it back into the beaker it came from
5. Hang up the film (don't touch it with anything).
6. With a 20 ml syringe (no needle) apply a gentle jet to the top of one side of the film and progress downwards at a reasonable rate. Repeat 2 or 3 times until arrive at the bottom.
7. Repeat other side.
8. Leave room

This is in my cellar where the washing machine is, it's tiled and there's a runoff in the floor. 100 ml of the solution on the floor is not a problem.

Advantages: No scratching whatsoever. No calcium carbonate (scale) spots.

Some people hang their film in special film hangers, or in the bathroom where a hot shower has been run. The steam gets rids of the dust. Whatever.

colin
 
Fairy liquid is better than nothing. Not a squirt though, a drop or two should be sufficient. Hang the film up to dry for a couple of hours, no scratch marks whatsoever. 🙂
 
colinh said:
Some people hang their film in special film hangers, or in the bathroom where a hot shower has been run. The steam gets rids of the dust. Whatever.
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Bulldog clips get my vote. One at either end. After all, the ends get chopped off anyway, don't they? 🙂
 
Hello, just to add my $0.05 to the mix, dishwashing liquid and wetting agent are the same thing, one or the other is fine. Although a more expensive solution, I found the single biggest improvement for removing drying marks was to use a drying cabinet. Mine is home made from an old clothing locker with a cheap fan heater jammed in the top. It force drys the film from the top down. If you use weighted clips and don't let you film dry covered in bubbles from the wetting agent you should be on the way to mark free negs. If your getting white marks caused by mineral deposits, install a filter on the tap you use for processing; it will make you drinking water better as well 🙂
Cheers Andrew.
 
Here is a foolproof method for drying 120 or 135 B&W roll film without leaving watermarks, scratches or streaks. It’s a bit labor intensive but will be worth the effort.

The procedure is to wipe down both sides of your roll film simultaneously while it hangs from a film clip using two damp water-absorbing cloths each folded into the shape of a sponge. The cloths will remove any water drops, which could contain mineral deposits. The cloths will even pull the water out of the sprocket holes in 35mm film. This procedure works well if you use a hardener in your film fixer and do not use a wetting agent,

There was a time when you could buy “photo grade” sponges for this purpose but I haven’t seen any for 20 years or more. Photo Wipes work well, but they become expensive if you are processing 30 to 40 rolls a week.

I have found by trial and error that the best material to use to create your own film-wiping pads is the smooth surfaced synthetic chamois or Microfiber automobile wiping/drying cloths found in automotive stores. They are thicker, softer and more water absorbing than natural chamois and they contain no oily residue since they are man-made. Most auto part stores sell these cloths. In the US, Pep Boys Auto Supply stores always have them.

A pair of these cloths/pads will last for years if properly cared for.

Email me for painfully detailed how-to-do-it information, as my explanation is too long for a forum post.

Walter Holt
 
With my last batch of film, I used distilled water with Photofo as the final 1 minute wash step, and I got NO mineral deposits, which until now were the bain of my existance (photographically speaking.)
 
Its a good idea to use some kind of hypo clearing agent as this helps remove the slimy residue on film after fixing that even a decent wash can sometime not even remove. After fixing, wash for two minutes and then hypo for another two and then wash for about 6-8 minutes. When removing the film from the reel, take the roll in both hands like as though you were about to examine the negs, and put one hand over your head and the other below whist holding the roll out, and tap your finger on the high side, this helps to create a drain so that the drops will flow down one side of the strip.
I keep a 1:4 solution of LFN or photo flow in a 1L bottle which I put my squeegee into before I start developing in the first place, so that its wet and soaked in wetting agent. Use it this way and you will end up having -at worst small beads of moisture between the sproket holes and thats it. Ive been doing it this way for 20+ years in all kinds of darkrooms and anyone Ive shown it to have all been impressed. Try it see how you like it!
 
irq506, you've never developed Kodak high speed infra-red film, have you? The emulsion is so soft, even a slippery/gentle fingers squeegee scratches it. A rubber sqeegee would just about strip all the emulsion from the film base. On important negs, even with regular film, I would never trust a rubber squeegee. Of course, YMMV.
 
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