Washing film

[wintoid]

I've been developing my own film for about 4 months now. Often my results have been plagued with little flecks or hairs, taking hours to sort out in Photoshop. It's almost been enough to push me back to digital.

Last night, whilst wrestling with a film (Neopan 400 in Rodinal, yuck, never again, that combination is NOT what I'm looking for) I got very frustrated, so half way through scanning it I decided to wash the unscanned strips in Fairy liquid (err liquid for washing up dishes if you don't know Fairy). I really washed those strips very carefully using my fingers, and dried them gently with a hairdryer. The scans were WAY cleaner with only a few flecks.

Being an inquisitive type, I want to understand where this dust/hair is coming from. Why hasn't my previous cleaning/drying regime sorted them? I've been doing the Ilford recommended 5/10/20 inversions in water to clean the film, plus a final rinse in Ilford wetting agent, before hanging them to dry. Is the dust really settling on them as they dry? Or could it be that the dust gets on the film inside the developer tank somehow, and the rinsing doesn't remove it? Or maybe the dust is some residue from the development process?

Any help/advice would be much appreciated!

 

[Doug]

...Often my results have been plagued with little flecks or hairs, taking hours to sort out in Photoshop. ... Is the dust really settling on them as they dry?

This is most likely, yes. You need to make sure your drying area is protected from air currents that bring lint and dust. A shower stall is usually good, after turning on the water and spraying down the walls first. A hair dryer is risky, as is anything else that blows unfiltered air onto the wet tacky film surface. Junk on the neg is really annoying isn't it!

 

[hth]

Specks usally comes the drying process, the air is full of them. I also had trouble when I tried the recommended Ilford washing you describe as it left some other kinds of dirt on the negs that made them impossble to print without lots of work in Photoshop, traditionally it was just just hopeless. I then went back to long washing times of flowing water and it was fine again.

I have tried Photo-Flo washing aid, but I changed it for a spraying distilled water over the freshly hung up film and let it drip off. I hang the films in my bathroom over night. I do get some dust, so it is not perfect.

I then wipe the negs and blow them with compressed air just before putting it into the scanner or the enlarger. I think it comes out good enough for my taste. I do need some fixing up in Photoshop, but most of the time it is minimal. For the enlarger (which I have not used for a year due to lack of darkroom) I never have done any touch ups, I reprint the ones that are annoying, and they are few. Save for those that are way beyond help and need Photoshop.

/Håkan

 

[alansoon]

I'd recommend drying it in a bathroom. Fire up the shower for a couple of minutes. The steam will pull down the larger dust particles. Alternatively, use a water spray can for a similar effect. Keep the door closed. The negs will take a longer time to dry, but at least they will be cleaner.

If you have a closet, that works just as well.

 

[Poptart]

I'd toss the wetting agent for a start--it may be contaminated. Try a drop or two of Edwal LFN both following the final rinse (and in distil;led water!) and in the developer itself.

 

[wintoid]

Thanks all for your input.

Following on from this discussion, I wanted to know for sure if the drying process was responsible, so I burned through a quick roll of TriX@1600 indoors and developed it in Rodinal. This time though, I dried it gently with a hair dryer whilst it was still on the spool. For the first time ever, some of the frames were almost totally free of gremlins. I do have a few issues left though, such as what looks like concentric ovals, possibly a residue left after the drying, or perhaps a warping indicating I dried too hot? I might try Poptart's suggestion of losing the wetting agent, and stick to the hairdryer approach.

There's no reason why TriX would attract dust less than Neopan 400 is there?

 

[CJP6008]

Now this may be a counsel of perfection but it works for me and gets really clean negs.

I wash the film in water at the processing temperature that I have already prepared. 8 or 9 changes of water. I am also trying to get rind of the sensitizing dyes as well as these pinkish dyes may affect printing contrast (think what colour a hard grade filter is for the enlarger - what woudl that dye do to shadow tones if left in!). The penultimate wash is in distilled (or at the very least de-ionised water - the stuff that comes out of a dehumidifier for example). Distilled water is not as good at getting fixer out of film as is normal tap water but you need to get that tap water out to avoid drying marks (probably those concentric circles you mention, minerals from the tap water basically). The temperature is important as wash times dramatically increase as water temperatures go below 20 degres C. I understand it is a combination of the solubility of fixer in water and the colder temperatures closing up the structure of the gelatine somewhat. Michael Maunder has written on the subject, probably in Ag Magazine.

After that distilled water wash, they go into distilled water with Tetenal Mirasol S or whatever their wetting agent is called. It also contains an anti-static agent - handy. I mix up a litre of this in a big jug and, carefully undoing the spiral, drop the film in. This does less violence to the film than dragging it out of its spiral. Bear in mind that the gelatine is at its softest now. After a minute in that, having washed any dust or whatever of my hands (and not then dried them on a towel - a great way to get fluff in your water - I know, I have done it!), I grab one end and, out of the water, attach a clip to it. I then lift the whole lo carefully out and hold it at about an angle of 30 degree from horizontal for 30 seconds or so to let the water run off.

Then another clip goes on the other end and it goes into a drying cabinet. I never squeegy - see comments above about the softness of the gelatine. Drying cabinets are invaluable and can be had pretty cheaply on eBay as so many darkrooms are getting ripped out as people rush lemming like to the land of dismal quality that is digital imaging. They filter the air as it comes in etc.

Do that and you should get lovely clean negs.

As far as films and developers go, many factors affect ones choices. the look you are after etc. if you normally scan and print digitally beware grainy combinations (anything in Rodinal, Tri-X etc) as scanning seems to accentuate grain - a phenomenon known as grain aliasing. I recall reading about it but forget the details. Tanning and staining developers (PMK Pyro, Precysol, Exactol Lux etc) are a way round this as the stain developed in the neg acts as a very smooth density. They also need much less sharpening than normal negs or C41 negs as they are very high acutance developers, giving pronounced edge effects. Sharpening can also cause problems and has to be done carefully. if it can be avoided, all the better.

I hope this helps.

C
.

 

[kaiyen]

Hm. Let me sort out my replies...

1 - assuming you are mixing up the wetting agent fresh each time (or at least each dev session), I see no reason why you should stop using it. diluted correctly, it will help keep water marks off your film. please note that, at least for kodak photo-flo, the "correct" dilution is about double what they recommend. I use 3 drops from an eye dropper in a liter of distilled water.

2 - dust is everywhere. you can avoid it by:

a - running some hot water in an enclosed space to pull the dust out of the air, then letting the film hang dry

b - using a hair dryer to dry the film on the reel, but I recommend putting the reel into a circular tube and feeding the dryer's air into it. example is at http://www.shutterbug.net/features/0902sb_how/

the hair dryer's built-in filter is actually quite effective, and by blocking the top of the tube no additional dust can get in there.

USE THE COOL SETTING on the hair dryer. I strongly advise AGAINST using heated dry with a hair dryer (unless it has a really, really low heat setting...)

3 - are the circular marks on the film? You say it's either residue or warped film. if it's residue, that sounds like water marks to me. One thing about using the hair dryer is that it can evaporate the water so quickly that it leaves marks, even if you use wetting agent.

I put the dryer on low for about 10 minutes. That pushes the wetting-agent-final rinse off slowly and completley.

allan

 

[jano]

Hi -- I had lots of weird residue on my first several tries, along with nasty dust, strange white particles, etc. What cured my problems was a combination of:
- longer fixing time
- longer, more careful washing

Here's what I did for washing:
- just let tap water run into the tank for more than five minutes
- then pour our the tap water
- pour one cup of distilled water into the tank, swish it around, pour it out
- have a solution on the side prepared that had ONE drop of photo flo and one cup of distilled water
- dunk the reel into it, spin it once, then pull it out
- run some distilled water over it, shake it about

I finally stuck it in my magical hair-drier (on cool setting) setup. My hair drier has a filter for dust on the back. Was impressed by what a properly developed b&w negative looks like, dust free! 🙂

 

[wintoid]

I've been very blasé with the wetting agent. Generally I have been pouring a small amount of concentrated wetting agent into the cap of the bottle, then pouring back from the cap into the bottle until there's a very small amount in the cap, then tipping that into the developing tank, and adding water afterwards. Maybe I need to mix it up first and get an eye dropper?

I actually did use a tube made from several sheets of A4 paper stuck together to funnel the air from the hair dryer over the reel. I dried it on its side (not ideal I know), and rotated it every 30 seconds or so. Living in a tiny flat, a dedicated drying cabinet is not feasible, nor is a permanent drying tube really. We are "full". One more rangefinder and we'll fall through into the flat below 😀

 

[Trius]

My temporary solution for a drying cabinet was to purchase one of those canvas garment storage "closets", the kind that can you hang up with a couple of hooks that are attached to the top. I keep it zipped up ALL the time so it doesn't collect any dust inside. The one I got isn't tall enough for a 36 exp roll, so I just hang the film by both ends, so there is a gentle loop at the bottom.

Unless I were to construct a cabinet with filtered air, I would never use any sort of hair drier or fan to dry film.

Earl

 

[kaiyen]

Living in a tiny flat, a dedicated drying cabinet is not feasible, nor is a permanent drying tube really.

you can't fit a 4" wide 1.5' tall piece of tubing somewhere in your flat? I was able to store it under the bathroom sink when I didn't need it.

allan