is wash film with warm water will make washing faster? and cold water making washing longer time? right now i just left the water running, i have no idea if it is really clean.
is wash film with warm water will make washing faster? and cold water making washing longer time? right now i just left the water running, i have no idea if it is really clean.
I try to wash film at the same temperature as the chemistry.
I have a temperature control mixing faucet with a thermometer providing the wash water.
You want to avoid thermal shock. That can damage the emulsion.
I once had a problem in a community darkroom where the cold water got shut off somehow and the film washed for an hour or so in hot water. When I retrieved it, most of the emulsion was gone. Obviously, that's an unusual situation, but illustrative of my point.
To answer your question... The temperature has no impact on wash efficiency.
- Leigh
If you believe you can, or you believe you can't... you're right.
Warm (not hot!) water will wash more effectively as washing is a diffusion process. I believe a transition a few degrees upwards from the fixer to the washing bath won't induce any emulsion damage. In fact, modern emulsions are quite difficult to get to reticulate. Obviously, washing above the melting point of gelatin is a very bad idea.
Hot (warm) washes can cause excessive swelling/softening that while drying, the emulsion can shrink back down ever so slightly out of perfect register when dry that can have a slightly mushy edge sharpness (even before reticulation)... When processing/washing/drying, even temp, and keeping the wet time as low as possible will produce noticeably sharper results... (Does your hot summer processed film look just like your temperate weather processing???)
Film is easy to wash, because the film base does not absorb chem like paper does (that's why RC washes fairly quickly, while fiber based papers take much longer)... You don't really need a washing aid for film, because it is easy to wash well... A few changes of wash water, some time between them for diffusion, is good...
Steve K
What Steve K said is right on. I'll add that film washes much faster in hard rather than soft water. Just follow washing with a good rinse in distilled water.
It's pretty impressive when film reticulates from too warm a wash water. Hopefully you'll only do it once!
With liquid fixers (ammonium thiosulfate ) i.e. rapid fix, warmer than 20 C won't help. Try to stay at constant temperature from beginning to end. Hypo clearing agent helps speed washing, but is rarely used any longer with film and rc papers. 10 complete changes of water, with each change every 30 seconds is good enough. I'm old school so I still use HCA, then wash for at least 5 minutes in running water, frequently dumping out the water.
Final rinse in deionized water with a few drops of photo flo
Mike
May I submit what you are doing is slowly diluting the dirty/contaminated wash. That is a big waste of water and doesn't really get your film clean.Originally Posted by xtmevolution
IMHO, what is more important is total changes of wash water. After fixing, rinse a couple times using complete changes of water which will eliminate a large amount of residual fixer. Follow that with a hypo eliminator per manufacturer's instructions. Finally, fill your wash tank, let it sit for a minute or so then and empty it completely. Do that several times - it is those complete changes of wash water that will get your film clean and at the same time save water.
Old habits don't die so I try to keep each of my fluids within one to two degrees F.
Last edited by AtlantaTerry; 29-May-2017 at 23:48. Reason: additional information
Ideally, the wash water and the processing temperature would be the same. Some variation is acceptable, but it is reasonable to try to keep this as small as possible. That said, Ilford gives a margin of error as, "... water at the same temperature, +/- 5ºC (9ºF), as the processing solutions." This seems rather extreme for me and may not apply to non-hardened emulsions or products other than Ilford's; I'll stay within a degree or two.
As for washing, see the thread at APUG here: http://www.apug.org/forum/index.php?...ng-test.69416/
Best,
Doremus
I found quite by accident that raising the wash temperature a bit relative to development (75F vs 68F, for example) speeds up the removal of the purple coloration from TMY2 with no apparent harm to the emulsion, at least none visible on close inspection in enlargements up to 10x.
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