Trouble clearing magenta stain

[Laszlo]

I have trouble clearing te magenta stain of TMax 100. My workflow is D76 straight (or XTol) - water stop 1min - TF-4 for 4 minutes - water 1min - Heico Perma Wash 1min - water 1min - water with PhotoFlo (sp?) 1min. The negs have a pronounced magenta cast. When I develop Maco IR in the same batch, the negs are clear.

I recently modified the workflow:
1. increased fixation to 6 minutes
2. increased Heico wash to 2 minutes
3. use 2 water washes after Heico

I have also mixed new TF-4 (and got new developer). My Heico concentrate is about one year old.

The negs still have a magenta cast, albeit less.

Does anyone have a suggestion on where to take it from here? Thanks.

[John Brady]

Laszlo, I am not familiar with "Heico Wash", but i shoot t-max and do my own processing. The magenta stain is very stuborn, but I find a 15 minute water wash does the trick for me. Make sure you do complete changes of the water bath for the rinse. When I have removed the stain I give the film a quick dip in hypo clear and hang it up to dry. I use pyrocat hd and t-max rs developer. Hope this helps.
http://www.timeandlight.com

[Yong-ran Zhu]

I also use Tmax film and Xtol developer. However, I use regular acid stop, which is the Kodak's routine. The water stop is recommended by Ilford for Ilford films. I use Ilford repid fixer, which can avoid using Perma as Ilford mentioned. Then you have to increase your wash time to 10 min. The film will be clear.
Yong-ran Zhu

[Mr. Doyle]

Laszlo,
Extended fix followed by an extended wash will cure this. In my early days processing and printing for the Topguns I had to send out many Tmax films magenta because the photographer wanted the film so quick. Most black and white films have a base colour, Plus x is green....
After ten years in the black and white printing and processing game I am open for questions about my dark past......

[Oren Grad]

I would shorten your fix back to where you started, but use a longer wash. If you extend the wash as long as ten minutes and still have trouble, I would then extend the Perma Wash step, not the fixer.

I did a run of TMX via rotary development in my Jobo earlier this week. 5 minute fix in Ilford Hypam 1+4, followed directly by a 12 minute wash in six changes of water, resulted in clean, completely cleared negatives, as always. No Perma Wash needed.

[Ron Marshall]

What Oren said. I add a presoak. Incidentally, Rodinal works very nicely with this film and also helps to rid it of the dye.

[Brian Ellis]

Magenta stains are often caused by improper fixing, either too short a time or exhausted fix. However, TMax is more prone to magenta stains than other types of film so a very slight magenta tint isn't unusual and won't affect your prints.

Your revised procedure seems fine to me except that the wash times seem short. I think you're using the wash times that Heico suggests in its instructions but I always thought those were very optimistic. I used to rinse TMax 100 for two minutes out of the fix, then Heico for the time recommended in the instructions (one or two minutes I believe), then wash for 10 minutes in a Salt Hill film washer (similar to a print washer with separate slots for each sheet and continuous water flow). That would normally remove virtually all the magenta, maybe just a very slight tint occasionally.

If the magenta really bothers you you could re-fix the negatives in a fresh batch of fix and see if that helps. There's no harm in refixing. But unless it's deep magenta as opposed to a slight tint I wouldn't worry about it.

[Andy Eads]

Lay the film out on a light table for a few hours. The dye bleaches out very fast.

[Ken Lee]

Sandy King suggested this to me, and it works nicely: After fix and a brief wash, soak the film in a 10% solution of Sodium Sulfite for 5-10 minutes. Then proceed with washing.

Note that in many formulas for "Hypo Clear", the active ingredient is Sodium Sulfite, and the remaining ingredients are preservatives. If you mix your own, a teaspoon of powder per litre is a good ratio, and is so cheap, it can be thrown away. Thus, there is no need for preservatives, since there is no "shelf-life".

As already stated, a few minutes of pre-soak also helps removes stain, in advance.

[Bruce Watson]

I have to ask what may be a dumb question: what does a magenta tint hurt? I would think it's just a component of base+fog and that you can print (or scan) right through it.

If it's a deep stain then it would be an indication of a processing failure of some kind (improper fixing most likely). A tint shouldn't matter -- but does it? If so, what's the effect?

I'm serious - just trying to learn something here...