embossed negatives

[greg_nixon2]

<p>I've been scanning my negatives that I have had since 1984. The emulsion on the film strips looks to have adhered to the sleeves, from the processor, in quite large random patches. There is not any emulsion missing but it looks to me like the grain of the sleeves has "embossed" the emulsion. Has anyone heard of this happening and can anything be done about it.<br />Regards<br />Greg Nixon</p>

[john_shriver]

<p>The term used for this is "ferrotyping". It's real, happens when things are a bit too humid, and too much pressure on the negative/sleeve sandwich.<br>

I would certainly scan them "as is" before considering doing anything. If the scans look fine, do nothing.<br>

You could try and soak them to make the emulsion swell back up to size, and then dry them in clean air. This is hard, you need really clean conditions not to get dust embedded in the emulsion making things much worse. Also, once you wet a C-41 emulsion with water, you have to soak in stabilizer to re-stabilize the color dyes, else they will fail.<br>

For older (say pre-2000) C-41 film, you have to use a stabilizer with formaldehyde, like Kodak Flexicolor Stabilizer III & Replenisher. This is discontinued, but can be found, and the formula can also be found. (Basically just water, formaldehyde, and Photo-Flo 200.) I've bought old stock bottles on eBay. This is also acceptable, but overkill, for newer C-41 films. Note that formaldehyde is "bad for you", use appropriate safety cautions.<br>

For newer C-41, you can use a "final rinse", like Kodak Flexicolor Final Rinse and Replenisher. Easily bought from Adorama. But this will <strong>not</strong> be sufficient for negatives from the 1980's!<br>

(You can use these solutions as the "soak".)</p>

[greg_nixon2]

<p>Thanks for your reply John. I think you've nailed it. The early photos were pretty c**p, I really am not much of a photographer, but there was the odd good, about one per film. I was intending to replace the photos missing from the albums, the ones that had been pilfered by family and outlaws etc.<br>

That's not going to happen now, but I am continuing to scan, if only to make index cards, and tag them with somesoftware.<br>

Cheers<br>

Greg Nixon</p>

[randrew1]

<p>There were some vinyl pages that would fit in a 3-ring binder that would do this. One page would hold several negative strips. There was a plasticizer that leached out of the plastic that caused the problem. I've never seen individual sleeves that caused this. </p>

[greg_nixon2]

<p>These negatives were stores in a page of sleeves, four frames per sleeve, folded up and then slipped back into the envelope that contained the prints.</p>