Water marks on Negative

[bence8810]

Hello there,

I am still a rookie at Developing and I am on my 64th roll of fill ever as we speak.

While I was playing with this photo in PS, my mistake the turned up the whites all the way with the Curve tool on the background and I noticed these disturbing marks that I normally otherwise never saw. Then I checked a few other negatives and I saw the exact same thing, always on the left hand side somehow... I only checked one roll though but I assume I have such marks (in various places) on other strips as well.

I also assumed that it has to do with the way I wash my film which is something I learned from my dad over Christmas who presumably learned it about 50 years back from his dad.
What he told me is that I add one drop of dish washing soap to some luke warm water, run the film strip through it once after its properly washed (i wash for 10 minutes in running tap water) and when out, use two fingers and squeeze the water from the surface by pulling the film through. I since then upgraded to a squeegee which should do it better and I thought i was all set.

What am I to do to never see these marks again?

By the way, I only shoot Kodak TMAX100 and 400 and develop in TMAX Developer 1:4 @ 24Celsius using official Kodak times.

Thanks,
Ben

 

[Ljós]

Hi Ben,

welcome to the fold!

I'd say, use something like Kodak Photo-Flo (I like Ilford generally, but I think Kodak Photo-Flo is the better product compared with Ilford Ilfotol.) instead of dishwashing agent.
Dishwashing agent will break the surface tension and make the water "sheet off" in the same way as Photo-Flo, but you can't be sure that it does not leave residue. Also you might find Photo-Flo easier to measure (usually the key is to not overdo it. Use dilution as described or less.)

Second, I would do without the squeegee. This borders on the religious, and many will swear they never ever had scratches from squeegeeing. I say, more power to them, but I hust hang my films out to dry ;-)

A tip you will find repeated over and over (it works...) is to steam up your bathroom, rinse the films in the photo-flo solution and hang them to dry. Be patient, don't come looking every five minutes 🙂 After two hours or so your films are ready for cutting and sleeving.

One more thing: depending on where you live, your negatives might benefit from using distilled water at the last washing/photo-flo stages.

All the best,
Ljós

 

[Lauffray]

A tip you will find repeated over and over (it works...) is to steam up your bathroom, rinse the films in the photo-flo solution and hang them to dry. Be patient, don't come looking every five minutes 🙂 After two hours or so your films are ready for cutting and sleeving.

Awesome ! I gotta try this

 

[Ljós]

Two more things:

- consider the Ilford washing-method. Google and RFF search are your friend with this one. Basically, changes of water in the development tank, instead of keeping the water running.

- something I picked up from Roger Hicks here at RFF: get yourself a Paterson water filter for your tap water. They are a very fine steel mesh and can be used for basically forever. I find a good amount of crud in mine on cleaning (rinsing the filter with water, no hassle) which otherwise would have made it into my development water.

If you look in Roger Hicks' signature, you will find a link to very useful development tutorials which cover the above and more.

I still use distilled water for the last wash and photo-flo-water, though.

Greetings, Ljós

 

[kanzlr]

What Ljós said.

Photo-Flo + Steam + distilled water.

 

[Ljós]

What Ljós said.

Photo-Flo + Steam + distilled water.

I think we got ourselves enough of a litany for a decent church ;-) ;-)

 

[Lauffray]

Two more things:

- consider the Ilford washing-method. Google and RFF search are your friend with this one. Basically, changes of water in the development tank, instead of keeping the water running.

- something I picked up from Roger Hicks here at RFF: get yourself a Paterson water filter for your tap water. They are a very fine steel mesh and can be used for basically forever. I find a good amount of crud in mine on cleaning (rinsing the filter with water, no hassle) which otherwise would have made it into my development water.

If you look in Roger Hicks' signature, you will find a link to very useful development tutorials which cover the above and more.

I still use distilled water for the last wash and photo-flo-water, though.

Greetings, Ljós

I don't know, do you really think distilled water makes a difference ? Seems like a lot of hassle for a small benefit

 

[Ljós]

I don't know, do you really think distilled water makes a difference ? Seems like a lot of hassle for a small benefit

Lauffray, I agree it is a hassle, because the distilled water needs to be bought of course. So I checked whether I could do without. Turned out (for where I live and the water there) that I really got visibly cleaner (and cleaner printing) negatives. I am going to move soon, and there I will make the same test, hopefully I can skip the distilled water there.

Greetings!
Ljós

 

[shortstop]

I began to use distilled water in the late washing for film. It wasn't sufficuent. Now all my chemical solution are made with it. For paper only the last washing (with wetting agent).

 

[Fotohuis]

Of course the result will depend of the quality of your tap water which can vary pretty much worldwide.
The best you can do is destilled water or R.O. water with the minimum dose of a good wetting agent for the last step in film development.

 

[shortstop]

Of course the result will depend of the quality of your tap water which can vary pretty much worldwide. The best you can do is destilled water or R.O. water with the minimum dose of a good wetting agent for the last step in film development.

What does it mean R.O.?

 

[Fotohuis]

Reverse Osmose water.

 

[Bill Clark]

Try this:

http://www.freestylephoto.biz/12056-Adolux-Adostab-Sistan-Image-Stabilizer-With-Wetting-Agent-1L

Even though I live in a place on our blue planet with lots of fresh water I still use this product. None of the characteristics you mentioned I have with my negs.

Hope this helps you!

 

[Darshan]

A tip you will find repeated over and over (it works...) is to steam up your bathroom, rinse the films in the photo-flo solution and hang them to dry. Be patient, don't come looking every five minutes 🙂 After two hours or so your films are ready for cutting and sleeving.

All the best,
Ljós

^^ this has always worked for me.

And I don't use squeegee.

 

[Ronald M]

Wash with clean water, not tap water which has dissolved solids.

Distilled water is best with 1:100 photo flo. Well filtered tap, 1:200.

What concerns me is the drips go across the neg. They go straight down with hanging film.

What works extremely well is a spray bottle with distilled water and photoflo . Spray top to bottom, do other side. Repeat 2 more time.

Reserve the mister for this and rinse out and dry when finished. Photo Flo grows crud.

 

[bence8810]

Thank you all for the valuable input. I will try the photoflo solution.
There's no dust in the bathroom where I develop, this is one good thing about Japanese bathrooms, they are plastic from top to bottom and are sealed off from the rest of the house as people here wash off outside of the bath and get in the tub only afterwards.

The problem will be that I didn't use Photoflo.

What concerns me is the drips go across the neg. They go straight down with hanging film.
grows crud.

This is indeed concerning, I wonder what caused it. I only hang my films vertically so there should have not been any marks going sideways.

I'll come back to this thread later on.

I also think that water in the Tokyo area is very mild and should be gentle on the film. That is if I am to believe my wife who spent 6 years complaining about her hair not being as smooth while we lived in various different countries.

Ben

 

[MichaelW]

I home develop & never get any marks. Wash in tap water. Final soak in distilled water with a few drops of LFN wetting agent (from Freestyle, best wetting agent I've ever used). Then a quick wipe off with a dedicated film chamois and hung in a recently steamed bathroom.

 

[bence8810]

I home develop & never get any marks. Wash in tap water. Final soak in distilled water with a few drops of LFN wetting agent (from Freestyle, best wetting agent I've ever used). Then a quick wipe off with a dedicated film chamois and hung in a recently steamed bathroom.

Thank you, this indeed seems to be what's working for most of the guys above too.

I'll give it a try!
Thanks,
Ben

 

[bonatto]

Had similar problems for a long time. Simple and effective solution - distilled or R.O water. No more problem.

 

[znapper]

I use filtered water for the development, I use a regular drinking-jug which has a simple carbon-fiter, works very very well. I use regular water for stop, then filtered water for the final wash.

I also use photo-flo in the last rinse, dip and dunk the film until the foam disappear, then i pull the reel out of the tank and empty.

After that, I put the reel back into the tank, hold the open tank on the top end and swing my arm back and fourth with the tank,to create a pendulum and centrifugal force on the remainder of water on the film.

So I swing 5 times, then lift out reel, empty tank.
5 more and empty
5 more and empty.

Hang film to dry inside a shower cabinet, after running hot water in there for 2-3 minutes, the steam removes a lot of dust. Even though your bathroom is plastic (most other places has tiles and/or some variant of a platic floor), there is dust in the room.....and you canno't always see the dust. Run the shower, steam up the room, hang your film, leave.

A lot less water residue and drying marks to worry about.

Never, NEVER, ever, EVER touch or squeegee your film, ever. Why some people do, I will never understand.
If you get a scratch, the film is useless for darkroom-work (can be saved digitally), but why risk it at all?