I presoaked for about 5 minutes with intervals of agitation.
I presoaked for about 5 minutes with intervals of agitation.
LOL ... I do normally presoak but it was for minimal time and agitation, after see the layer come off with the lights on and watching the amount of time and agitation I had to use, I quickly realized that for 8x10 sheet film, I had to change my presoak techniqueOriginally Posted by ROL
Why does the anti-halation dye have to come out in the pre-soak. What difference does it make to development if it comes out in the fix/wash?
Jon
my black and white photos of the Mendocino Coast: jonshiu.zenfolio.com
Jon,
Yes I wondered the same thing. I never pre-soak, I just start developing. The 4x5 film is in Kodak #4A hangers.
It didn't seem to effect my developing with my 4x5 negatives but for some reason with this particular film (Arista EDU or rebranded Foma) if I did not give it a good presoak, the dye would deposit or remain on parts of the negative even when rising the negative with water between the developing and fixing stage.
Once I gave the 8x10 negative a hearty presoak, the problem went away. Just my personal experience with this film.
TS -- did you use a fixer with or without a hardener?
Jon Shiu -- I found with developing in Job Expert Drums, that due to the film back touching the drum, the anti-halation layer was slow to be removed...even with a long pre-rinse. My guess was that the gelatin on the back of the film was hardened before all the anti-halation layer could be removed...thus some stayed on the film. Switching to a non-hardening fix seemed to cure the problem. Increasing pre-rinse time by itself did not solve it.
This is my best guess, and more than willing to be proven mistaken. I am just glad the my change to a non-hardening fix solved my problem (everything else in my processing had stayed the same.) Ilford Film, FP4+, FYI.
PS -- on my negatives, the backside of the negative has an obvious 'deposit' on it
Right, it shouldn't affect development at all. But the OP seemed to be more stuck on some kind density differences that showed up during enlarging–contacting-scanning (...he was unspecific about his positive process) due to uneven removal of the coatings. My first thought upon looking at the posted pix is that it is almost certainly uneven development, and here's where I would have offered my standard advice, except that it would have been redundant, having already conferred by another poster: Don't skimp on developer and use a tray at least one size larger than the film to prevent turbulence and developer drag from the sides of the tray.
Haven't read the whole thread, but didn't notice any mention of "flash testing" which is fairly crucial to determining if your development is nice and smooth across the whole negative. You can process a number of negatives and believe that you are getting good results until you run that test and find that things are not optimal. Just saying...
When I was doing a lot of tray developing I found that various methods produced decidedly different results in my quest for even tones in the skies. One observation that came to light was that the sloshing of developer over the edges can produce accelerated development/density in those outside edges of the negative relative to the middle of the negative where the motion was less dramatic. Just like the sprocket marks that happen with over aggressive agitation of reels in tanks. It seems like I see a fair amount of it in the posts on this forum, where there's a kind of splotchiness in the skies. It drove me crazy after a while, maybe I'm seeing it where its not there now.
John Youngblood
www.jyoungblood.com
Me too, it drives me crazy. The only way I could fix it was with a jobo print drum. But my whole plate negatives are tray developed and xray film is specially prone.
David Cary
www.milfordguide.nz
The longer presoak has help for sure ! Major difference.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks