Film Drying, Best Practices

[Kirk Gittings]

Sales of large prints have led me to greater care with drying my 4x5 negs-dust is always a big problem in the SW. I'm curious about peoples approach to this. I've added a HEPA filtration system to my drying closet. I'm figuring on blowing clean air into it for a few minutes, letting everything settle then hang my film in the still clean air. I'm not in a hurry so I don't need to blow dry air in when they are hanging. I have also heard of people misting their drying cabinet down with filtered water and letting that settle. What do people do who live in extremely dusty environments like the SW?

[David Lobato]

I was wondering about room ionizers, and found this.
http://www.largeformatphotography.in...o-control-dust

[Daniel Stone]

Kirk,

While I might not be in as dry a climate as you, I've found that NOT running any forced air always gives me cleaner negatives in the end. I simply let them hang to dry(using Photo Flo, or your chosen wetting agent). I DO NOT squeegee the film, I actually prefer to hang it up while it is still dripping water like crazy, as gravity will 'pull' any particulate down(and hopefully off, with the drips) the length of the film.

Sheet film I clip in the corner, so the water drains to 1 corner. Roll film I weight down with pegs/clips, and once the film has finished dripping, I take a paper towel, and gently wick the residual bead/droplet(with sheet film) off the corner/bottom of the film. I do not touch the bead of water with the towl, capillary action will cause the bead of water to suck into the towel itself.
I've done it this way for almost 10 years now, and I've always had perfect negatives. Using forced/heated air, I always encountered embedded dirt/dust in/on the film.
Takes a little longer this way, but I am basically ensured to have clean, dust-free negatives.

I hang my film up using a clothesline, length-wise in the shower/tub, so the drips will go down the drain.
BEFORE I hang the film to dry, I run the shower full-blast on HOT, and close the door so it will get somewhat steamy in the bathroom. I turn off the shower, let the steam hang about for a bit(5-10mins or so), so any dust in the air will get grabbed by the airborne steam and fall to the ground. I then proceed to hang the film up as fast as possible.
I purchased my retractable clothesline at Ikea, but it's almost identical to this one here: https://amzn.com/B01EA9CVGM

-Dan

[Kirk Gittings]

Yeah that won't work for me for reasons too long to go into-can't use the showers.

[Ari]

I bought a film drying cabinet for a song, it looks like an old phone booth.
I heat up the cabinet for a few minutes, then hang the film to dry in the warmth after a bath in Edwal.
Every month I wipe down the inside, and haven't had any dust problems from that end of things.
I do have water issues, in that I'm not filtering the water I use for washing, so a final rinse in distilled water and Edwal helps.

[StoneNYC]

Kirk,

I'm going to second the "I steam up my bathroom before hanging my film" sentient.

I've also found that this method of the steam enveloping the dust particles and then drags them to the ground, works best.

Since you have a cabinet instead, what about getting a steamer (like an iron for ironing your clothes, but they make "wands" that are for hanging clothes) you could "wand" the inside of the drying cabinet before you hang everything, this would at least help pull some more dust out of the air?

Pre-steaming the room/cabinet really is the best solution IMO.

Hope maybe you can utilize this concept in a way that works for your situation.

[Pere Casals]

I solved the dust problem with a Honeywell 16200 HEPA purifier. If solves film drying and scanning

This has a powerful flow that cleans a small room in minutes. Smaller purifiers are too slow.

Anyway our dress can emit tons of dust, so it is important to wear an overalls that it is not prone to emit dust.

Another good practice is to use some distilled water+humectant form final rinse, I use 50cc per sheet.

[Bruce Watson]

Sales of large prints have led me to greater care with drying my 4x5 negs...

Are you sure that drying is your problem? I'm asking because I thought that too and tackled drying with a vengeance. Yet, my spots problem didn't improve much. Turned out that every step in my process added it's own special bits of dirt. In the end I had pretty clean negatives, but drying was just a small part of the overall solution for me.

[Kirk Gittings]

Are you sure that drying is your problem? I'm asking because I thought that too and tackled drying with a vengeance. Yet, my spots problem didn't improve much. Turned out that every step in my process added it's own special bits of dirt. In the end I had pretty clean negatives, but drying was just a small part of the overall solution for me.

Thanks. Yes I'm pretty sure it is air born dust as I have inline filters for all the water I use plus distilled for final rinse.

[Tin Can]

I use Honeywell 50250 floor canister HEPA filter. It does serious work. I put it under a darkroom sink and in winter add a big wick type humidifier.

Previously I was running something fancier 3 times the size, but filters were too expensive. It had 4 filters and cost $500 to change them. And my daughter had a bad mold problem in her old house. So they bought filters for it.

My father ran Honeywell whole house Electrostatic filters for 50 years. He worked for Honeywell. Round thermostat man.

I was amazed at his last house which ran one for 10 years. All time he lived there. When we cleaned out the unfinished, concrete floor basement, nothing was dusty and nothing has been cleaned ever on the open shelf storage. No dust!

He had bad allergies and needed the best air filtration made.

Even the boxes of 50-60's slides were dust free in 2003.