film drying technique - paper towels

[leicaglow]

It's best if you don't wipe the film at all. Use PhotoFlo at the end before drying, then when thoroughly dry, cut and put in archival sleeves with cotton gloves. Paper and negatives just don't go together.

[david_gallmeier]

Not so much a question as something I wanted to share about how I dry film.

 

I've developed probably four rolls of film at this point and don't know a whole

lot, but I've also been advised by my past boss, a 30+ year camera technician

with decades and decades of experience developing film. About cameras and

photography, nobody knows more than him. Anyways, this technique is from him

and not me.

 

After fixing the film, you rinse for about 20 minutes at the sink. Pull the

film out, and hang it up. With two thoroughly wet fingers, you "squeegee" the

film, not to remove water but to apply the proper amount of moisture to the

film. Then take a paper towel (not toilet paper, as tp leaves dust) and grip

both sides of the film. VERY slowly but steadily and without stopping, firmly

wipe the entire length of the roll ONCE. There should be accumulated moisture

on the paper towel, but no water streak left behind on the negatives.

 

I use Ilford HP5, D76 1:1, kodak stop bath, Kodak fixer with hardener and kodak

hypo clearing agent and plain hard water (though I live in Atlanta and the tap

here is of much higher quality than the tap in other regions). Maybe the

hardener helps, but regardless, no scratches and no water marks to speak of.

Dries very quickly too.

 

Dust. I do have some dust on the negatives, although it's hard to tell where

it's coming from. I mixed my fixer at a wrong temp, so this batch is very

cloudy with lots of particles floating around which settle and stir up during

use. I suspect that this is where most of the dust is coming from. Also, the

film scanner I've been using (soon I'll be able to make my own prints and see

actual dust myself) is old and causes dust and other artifacts to show up.

Later, if dust persists, I'm going to try drying the film in PVC tubes.

 

Try drying film with a garbage roll if you want to attempt this. Make sure that

when you wipe the film down with the paper town, that no water streak trails (it

isn't hard to achieve this).

[pnance]

The dust is coming from the paper toweling!

 

Either photo-flo (use at half recommended strengh) or spray distilled water, I use photo-flo. No streaks, no dust, just clean negatives.

 

Incidently, if you add HCA (Hypo Clearing Agent) in between a short rinse and the final wash, the wash can be as short as 5 minutes, using less water.

[franklin_h1]

I'll have to agree that film should be left untouched until after its dry. Squeegees or anything that comes into contact with the film can only lead to scratches and other problems.

When the film comes out of the last rince (with PhotoFlo) I get film hanging clips on quickly and with the least amount of touching as possible then its left to dry thoroughly.

[randall ellis]

I agree with the others - squeegeeing film is the best way to get scratches down the entire roll. One small speck of something hard and it's all over. Film dries just fine, and in short order, without water spots or streaks if hung to dry after being dipped in a wetting agent. In all the rolls of film I've ever developed, I've only had dust on a single negative, and never any on any of the sheets I've done.

 

- Randy

[ivan_dzo]

This is terrible advice! Sorry to go against your mentor, but film is best hung up in the bathroom (run the shower for a few minutes to get rid of dust in the air) and left to dry for a few hours. No finger, no squeegees and above all no tissue paper. When you do this you get CLEAN negatives.

[User_502260]

I agree with all of the advice so far that you should not wipe the film in any way. I will add something else. If you see things floating in any solution, developer, stop bath, fixer or hypo clearing agent, filter it before you use it. A small funnel and a coffee filter should do the trick. Particles in these solutions can embed themselves in the emulsion. If that happens it no longer matters how you dry the film. They won't come out.

[raczoliver]

I sometimes had spots on 35mm film which I could eliminate by putting dishwasher in the final rinse (photo flo did not work for me). 120 film, however, always dries very clear without any dust or water spots. I never have to use my fingers or anything to wipe it. I just hang it up overnight and let it be.

[thomas_sullivan]

I use to squeegee film, and always got water spots and/or slight scratches. Then I read something that said to just photo flo it, hang it, and leave it the heck alone.

 

Haven't had one single water spot since then. No scratches either. doesn't help with the dust, but keeping that room moist and keeping the door closed for about 4 hours while it dries helps tremendously.

[ronald_moravec1]

I let the reel with film stand so the film drains edgewise for 3 min.

 

Then hang and do not touch it.

 

Your mentor gave you some of the worst advice I ever heard. Sorry.

[david_gallmeier]

I will try the coffee filter solution. Or I may just toss out the entire batch of fixer, since fixer is cheap. The dust marks show up on the scanned images, but not on the negatives (there are a couple of marks I can see come up as white on the image that is black on the negatives over the rolls I've done so far).

 

However, I can assure everyone that the negatives are clean, scratch-free and have no watermarks whatsoever. I was hesitant to wipe the film with paper towels at first, but if I'm using a technique which is working very well, then how can that be terrible advice? The film dries in about 10-20 minutes using this technique. BTW, there are no squeegees involved, I just used that word to illustrate what you do with wet fingers to apply moisture.

[al_kaplan1]

If you're feeling rich spring for a Senrac film dryer. It has a built in timer, offeres the choice of moderatly heated air or room temperature. the air is filtered, and it dries the film on the stainless steel reels. It's a LOT easier to blow water across the width of film than to let it run down 5.5 feet of hanging film. As soon as the film is reasonably dry take it off the reel and wind it back on emulsion side out, then back in the dryer for a few minutes. That gets rid of the curl. If you're not in a hurry just hang the dry film with a weighted clip overnight to straighten it out. Before digital came along just about every newspaper darkroom had one of those dryers. They turn up used (and cheap) on the auction site.

[ivan_dzo]

You might wish to wonder why out of the nine people who responded, all nine said don't touch the film. Between them, we have several hundred years of experience of developing films, and have tried fingers, squeegees, paper towels etc etc.

 

Touching films with anything, risks scratches and definitely causes dust. Sure if you're in a hurry, use paper towels and a hair dryer. You'll get dusty films but dry in 3 minutes. Remember your negatives (and the scratches and dust on them) will last a lifetime - good or bad.

[arraga]

Do NOT touch the film after the wash. Get on your kness and thank the inventors of fixer with emulsion hardening incorporated.

 

Next, prepare a mixture of 66% destilled water, and 33% of isopropyl alcohol, with 2-3 drops of humectant. Drop the reels in it after the wash, and hang them to dry. The alcohol will speed up the drying time a lot. The mixture can be reused many times.

[CosteaM]

David, your films your results. There are pros and pros. Some 20 years ago I had the opportunity to assist a pro in a photo lab. He was doing portraits of people for anthropologic studies. It was all done in b/w and he was teaching me the same thing with the squeegee because he was always rushing to finish tens and tens of negatives each day of which he could care less. He was paid by the hour not by the quality of his work (no fashion shoots there...). I tried his method and got scratches on one out of three films. Unlike the pro I pay for my films so I care. Use photo-flo and distilled water in the last wash and let the film hang until dry. Don't touch it. Good luck,

[rowland_mowrey]

This is probably the worst advice I have ever seen given to anyone. Sorry. Do not use paper towels in any way to wipe films.

 

Ron Mowrey

[jtk]

It's possible to squeegee relatively safely with wet fingers, but not if you've got callouses. Better for women than men. Makes no sense to try unless you're in a big hurry and accept the risk of scratches. Not much call for that anymore, in view of digital cameras. Might as well do it right:

 

Use 3 drops (no more) of Photoflo per 500cc (2X35) of DISTILLED (not filtered) water after sloshing the reels around in a couple of tanks-full of distilled water. Then hang the film to dry in a rarely used draft-free bathroom (making sure to block any heating/air conditioning ducts).

 

Bathrooms are better than darkrooms because they get mopped frequently: darkrooms gather more dust. If chemistry is mixed in a darkroom, it's an especially bad idea to dry film there.

 

Use distilled water rather than filtered because a good scanner sees the tiny dirt specs that filters (and enlarger optics) miss. Filtered water was fine for enlargers, but isn't for scanners.

 

Years ago I was a yearbook photographer...mixed, spilled, and casually mopped up chemistry in the college's public relations darkroom. The PR staffer was furious that what the evaporated chemistry I missed, by only mopping up once after mixing, wound up in the air and on his negs. I learned the hard way.

[robbox]

"Try drying film with a garbage roll if you want to attempt this."

Definitely the best advice in that whole post.

Though if you're going to be scanning, and don't mind spending some time with the clone tool, it really doesn't matter.

[javi_l1]

Here goes an advice from a non professional shooter.

 

I give my washed films a 1minute bath in photo flo: 1,5 ml in 1 litre. Then I hang them in a wet shower and pour from the top to the bottom another hole litre of the same concentration photoflow. This pouring drags all dust and forms an even coat. It dryes in 1,5 hours.

 

When I began to use this method I said goodbye to watter marks and strikes.

[bill.akstens]

Paper towels can contain all kinds of stuff I wouldn't want touching my film: bits of wood fiber, bits of metal, especially cheaper recycled paper towels. Only use them for cleaning up film chemical spills.

[fred_obturateur]

Now to the original post :

 

"Maybe the hardener helps, but regardless, no scratches"

I think you've pretty much discovered the trick behind this "miraculous" drying technique... Just don't try it at home folks!

[fred_obturateur]

"Some 20 years ago I had the opportunity to assist a PRO [emphasis mine] in a photo lab. He was always rushing to finish tens and tens of negatives each day of which he could care less. He was paid by the hour not by the quality of his work (no fashion shoots there...)"

 

Not exactly the definition of a pro lab worker innit...?

[david_gallmeier]

Yeah, that's a good point. Without physically demonstrating how this is done, I couldn't very well recommend others to do it just from my text description alone. But I just wanted to share this because it sounds crazy yet does work for me.

[friedemann_wachsmuth]

What I do after Photoflo (resp. stabilizer): I put at least two reels (one empty if necessary) in a

salad spinner and crank fast for 30 seconds. I then hang the reels in my Jobo Mistral. Even

without the Mistral -- the spinning leaves no single drop of water on the film.

 

I don't recommend this with 120 film though, since that might jump out of the reel.

[flatulent1]

Salad spinner? I like it. Try attaching a reel to a cordless drill and run it on 'high' for half a minute. Just don't run it the wrong way.

 

Fred Latchaw

Seattle