Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => The Wet Darkroom => Topic started by: Endeavour on January 30, 2016, 09:01:58 pm
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I realise this may be a 101 type question, but how you evenly dry negatives after their final wash?
I always end up with uneaven drying which leaves marks and 'ridges' on the film.
35mm or even 120 is easier as I can use a squeegee but they are too small for an entire 4x5. And besides I dont like the idea of scraping something over my negatives, only takes 1 dirt particle to put a scratch along the entire length of the film.
I hang my negatives up to dry and go back to find an uneven 'smooth' negative.
any advice please?
thanks
Simon
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Are you giving the negs a final dip in Photo Flo solution? If not, try it. I would then use an absolutely clean - used for 1 purpose only - sponge to give a single wipe to each side. Another technique that takes longer is to hang the negs after their Photo Flo dip and hold a sponge on the corner to suck the water off.
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Definitely use PhotoFlo. I always dipped two clean fingers in the PhotoFlo solution and wiped 35mm and 120 film before hanging to dry, but I never needed to do that on sheet film (4x5 or 8x10). After the PhotoFlo dip I simply hung the sheet by one corner using a spring clothes pin, adding another clothespin on the bottom corner, and leaving them to dry overnight.
This worked for me for well over forty years, with never a dust speck or streak on any negative.
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Thank you both
I used some photo flo and things are looking a lot better
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We had some pretty hard water.
Photoflo with distilled water worked for me.
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We had some pretty hard water.
Photoflo with distilled water worked for me.
I offer my sympathies! Hardness of water, along with unfilterable grit, was one of the several reasons I abandoned the wet out here in the Med.
When I was using 4 x 5 negs in my trainee days, they were simply hung up to dry in a low-heat cabinet, straight from the wash. The Glasgow water, in those days at least, was so pure you could top up your car battery without buying distilled water to do it.
Rob C
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Definitely use PhotoFlo. I always dipped two clean fingers in the PhotoFlo solution and wiped 35mm and 120 film before hanging to dry, but I never needed to do that on sheet film (4x5 or 8x10). After the PhotoFlo dip I simply hung the sheet by one corner using a spring clothes pin, adding another clothespin on the bottom corner, and leaving them to dry overnight.
This worked for me for well over forty years, with never a dust speck or streak on any negative.
What Eric said, however sheets larger than 5x7 hung in a drying cabinet with no ventilation will take longer to dry.