Stain on Polaroid 55 negative....

[Sitron]

I've been playing around with Polaroid Type 55, and love the instant negatives. Unfortunately, I left a few soaking in a water bath for only about an hour, and the perforated paper on the top of one must have been resting on another, and left a stain. Is there any way I can get rid of it? I tried re-soaking in the sodium sulfite, and washing, but it didn't even fade. It's over too large an area to re-touch successfully in Photoshop. Any ideas? I really like the neg. (figures!).

[Craig Wactor]

how long did you wash it? Maybe if you left it in the wash for an hour or longer. Maybe some orbit bath would help too. I'm guessing it is the dye from the paper...

[Brian Ellis]

I don't think there's such a thing as an area too large to fix in Photoshop. Without seeing the stain it's difficult to make specific suggestions but since the negative is b&w and the stain presumably is in some color you could try selecting it and then desaturating or selecting it and then converting it to gray scale. Those are both pretty rudimentary suggestions and if they don't work and if the negative is important to you I'd suggest going to the Photoshop user's group and ask for suggestions there or take it to a pro lab if there is one in your area and see what they can do with it. I feel fairly confident that someone who's really a Photoshop expert (which I'm not) could fix it for you or tell you how to fix it yourself.

[Mike Davis]

Always make sure that you snap off the pieces at the top and bottom. There is actually a perforation on the negative that lets you do this easily.

After that, if you have no sodium sulfite for clearing, warm water (<80 F) can do an ok job. There is usually some stain left, but it gets all of the goop off.