Quote Originally Posted by Paul Greeves View Post
... Also, I could try to remove most of the water before hanging up the film.
There's your problem. And I concur with your diagnosis in the first post: wetting agent residue.

I know a lot of people say to not touch the film after the final bath in wetting agent, but (and especially, if you're not mixing your Photo Flo carefully, which you aren't) leaving lots of water on the film to just run off and dry leaves lots of residual wetting agent on the film after the water has evaporated if it hasn't dripped off like it is supposed to. So...

1. Mix your Photo Flo as per Kodak's directions (1:200) or weaker. You can use a weaker than recommended solution if, and only if, the surface tension of the water is definitely broken, i.e., the water sheets up on the surface of the film leaving no drops or discrete puddles.

2. Make sure your final bath of wetting agent is freshly mixed (Photo Flo working solution does not keep well) and mixed in distilled water (this latter especially if you have less-than-perfect tap water). I keep a jug or two of distilled water around just for this purpose.

3. Soak your film, with gentle agitation, in the wetting agent solution for at least 30 seconds. Longer won't hurt and is recommended if you have lots of dissolved minerals in your tap water. I do, and soak for three minutes or more.

4. Lift a sheet from the wetting agent and squeegee it gently between index and middle finger vertically along one side. Flip the sheet along the vertical axis and repeat for the other side. Make sure your fingers are clean, smooth and have been dipped in the wetting agent first. This removes most of the standing water on the film. The rest should be fine as long as you...

5. Hang the film to dry by a corner, so that there is a bottom corner functioning as a collecting point for the remaining water to drip from. After a few minutes, remove the collected water that is no longer actively dripping from the bottom corner of the film by touching the tip with a finger or a paper towel. You don't want to wipe, just coax the water to run off to your finger or into the paper towel.

6. Leave everything alone till the film is completely dry.

Hope this helps.

Doremus