Weird pucker marks on the backs of my negatives

[sully75]

Hello all,

Feel like I'm starting to get the development thing dialed in a little better.

BUT

I'm having a really frustrating thing happen randomly to negatives. It's hard to photograph so I'll have to describe it. I'm getting what looks like a hard water stain on some negatives on the anti-halation side. It looks almost like a thin kiss mark. It sort of looks like the negative has been scraped, but I suspect it's something attached to the negative. The marks are consistently shaped. It's not on the emulsion at all.

I also get some random spots that are clumped into areas on the anti-halation side. I've had this happen both with taco method and with the Bessler drum/rotary base I use more. The kiss marks I think I only get with the drum.

I'm using D76 1+1 one shot, have had this happen both with Kodak Rapid Fix and Kodak Pro fix. I'm washing in tap water. I can't say that the tap water is temperature controlled but I don't think it's excessively warm or cold. I'm prewashing with distilled water, and my chemicals are mixed with distilled water. I'm using Kodak indicator stop bath also.

Any thoughts? I wish I could take a picture of this but it seems to dissapear from the surface when I try to.

[Brian C. Miller]

Honestly? I think you have problems with octopi and squids. Either that or something in your darkroom is leaking dark forces, and you might want to get an exorcism done.

Do these marks follow the rubber bands when you use the taco method? Have you tried tray development? How about a final rinse in distilled water and LFN?

The times that I have had wierd marks on my negatives were because a commercial lab was using hot air to dry the negatives, and the water left marks.

[cyrus]

How do you dry your negs? Do you rinse in distiller water before drying? The could indeed be hardwater marks in which case if they're on the back (non emulsion) side of the neg you may be able to wipe them off with som PEC fluid and a soft tissue.