Re-washing negatives? Simple solution?

After disasterous results with damaged negatives at the "pro" labs

in Taiwan, I'm back to developing and printing my own. So far so

good, but when they dry, there are chemical spots on them. I'm a bit

gun shy after all the damage the labs did, so I don't want to just

run them under water again to see what happens. Deep in the

reccesses of my memory popped "Fotoflow," which is, naturally, not

available here (or if it is, its so far away that I won't be able to

get it for a month or so).

 

Any suggestions? Ideas? I did read somewhere that Zippo fluid can be

used with lens paper, anyone have thoughts on this?

Ratz, off to the land of no internet (home) to try this, I'll post the results.

<p>Photo-flo is nothing more than a non-ionic surfactant, diluted 1:100 to 1:200, to stop water spotting from the rinse. Just re-rinse and dip in Photo-flo.

</p><p>

Alternately (and better!), you can a 1/10 of 1% solution of formaldehyde, which will also act to preserve the film. Since you only need about a 35mm film container full, you can get formaldehyde at a mortuary, hospital, or (in some countries) a pharmacy.

</p><p>

[bTW, formaldehyde is what the E6 boys used for decades, until, for environmental reasons in large labs, Kodak switched the 4th, 5th, 6th & 7th steps from conditioner - bleach - fixer - final wash - formaldehyde rinse; to pre-bleach - bleach - fixer - final wash - Photo flo rinse. Incidentally, Fuji Hunt still offers both the old and the new E6 process chemistry.]

</p><hr width = "168"<p><br>

For spot-free drying I use a Jobo Mistral dryer, which works superbly... And you can make a copy for just a few dollars. What you need is one of those big, square hanging garment bags -- About 12 x 18 inches by 5-6 feet long -- and a bonnet type hair dryer. Just make sure the temps don't get above 60C (140F) for E6 & C41; and about 120F (45C) for B&W.</p><p>

Cheers!<br>

<a href = <http://www.focusphotolabs.com">Dan Schwartz</a> </p>

Formaldehyde is actually for preserving the gelatin emulsion on the film,not the film itself.Photo-flo is just soap that prevents uneven drying & streaking.

Soap. No need to get any more toxic than a drop or two of dishsoap to a cup of water.

Photoflo with Formaldehyde you can use Flexicolor Stablizer III which is a requirement for Kodak's Infrared films (unless you are running the AR-5 process).

 

Kevin

The dish soap answer is the right one, but it needs more dilution. To get an effect similar to Photo-Flo (which Kodak recommends diluting 1:200 in water, and which most experienced users actually use at half that strength or less -- I put 2-3 drops in a half liter of water) with dish soap, you want a stock solution similar to the bubble blowing liquid children use (in fact, though I haven't tried it because real Photo-Flo is cheap here, you could probably just use the commercial bubble liquid), which can be made with a milliliter or so of dish soap in a cup of water; the stock solution should foam vigorously with any agitation. That solution is then diluted out at a few drops (up to a dozen, perhaps) in a liter of water for the final film rinse; the film rinse shouldn't foam excessively, but should sheet instead of forming drops on the film surface.

 

And do yourself a favor, use distilled water for this final surfactant rinse. Thirty seconds in the treated water is enough, and a gallon jug of distilled water is enough to treat 8 rolls of 35mm film as a one-shot -- more if you have multiple rolls ready to treat at once, as you need just enough solution to cover the film, and can treat multiple rolls consecutively.

Do a search on washing on the B&W film forum.

Yup lighter fluid worked onto a neg with some lint free cloth often does the trick. Better to have nice clean uns in the first place though.

Steve said: "Formaldehyde is actually for preserving the gelatin emulsion on the film,not the film itself.Photo-flo is just soap that prevents uneven drying & streaking."

 

If this were so, we would use formaldehyde for all film and paper processes, not just some color films. The formaldehyde is there in some cases to harden gelatin and in other cases to react with left over couplers in color films and prevent fading or build up of stain. It can also react with color developer if any is left in the film due to insufficient washing.

 

I go for the soap solution rather than lighter fluid. But, make sure that the pH of the soap solution is near neutral or slightly acidic. Some soap solutions are on the alkaline side. Film and paper like to be on the acid side for maximum stability.

 

Good luck.

 

Ron Mowrey

Dishsoap?????? Fantastic, will mix some up tonight (have a pocket full of rolls shot this morning). Okay, I tried two solutions to cleaning the spotting problem. One worked, one was a near disaster. DO NOT use lens cleaner (I thought "plastic lenses, plastic film base, whassa difference?" forgetting that there was an emulsion side). It turned the emulsion side to a wierd sticky gellatinous surface. I managed to get it cleaned up with Zippo fluid, but haven't tried a print with that neg (was a bad shot anyway). However, the ligher fluid DID clean up the negs I wanted to print last night and today. The dish soap sounds like just the ticket to stop the initial problem of spotting :).

2 drops of soap in 600cc of water as a final wash of the negatives solved the spotting problem :).